Proposing an unbiased oxygen reduction reaction onset potential determination by using a Savitzky-Golay differentiation procedure

Abstract

For proper and fair comparison of the performance of Oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) electrocatalysts an un-biased method to determine an onset potential value is needed. Here we report an easy mathematical approach based on the second derivative of linear sweep voltammetry curves, referred to as a second order discrete differentiation method (SODDM) that allows to accurately provide the onset potential. Analysis of the published results showed that the reported values might be affected by an intrinsic human error associated with the application of the most common approaches addressed as a tangent method or those relaying on a visual estimation of the onset potential based on the shape of a linear scan voltammetry (LSV) curve. We have also demonstrated that by using SODDM, electrochemical data collected on different instruments by different researchers leads to comparable results in terms of the ORR onset potential values.

Keywords: Onset potential; Oxygen reduction reaction; Savitzky-Golay smoothing; Second derivative.