Electrode Potential Stability

This study demonstrates that even a small contamination on a single metal electrode produces large fluctuating potentials. These potentials can seriously distort the recording of bioelectric events. Controlled contaminants were placed on single metal electrodes of copper, zinc, and silver-silver chloride, and recordings were made versus a stable electrode of the same metal. In all cases, the fluctuating potentials recorded with the contaminated electrode were much larger than those when no contaminant was present. Electrolytically clean electrodes produced the smallest fluctuating potentials with all electrode pairs.