Electrochemical oscillations and bistability during anodic dissolution of vanadium electrode in acidic media—part I. Experiment

Dynamic instabilities, current oscillations and bistability observed during anodic dissolution of both stationary and rotating disk vanadium electrode in acidic phosphoric media, were reported using both dc and ac techniques. The effect of various experimental conditions, concentration of H3PO4, temperature, disk rotation rate, and external resistance, was analyzed. Systematic studies allowed the construction of bifurcation diagrams, showing the regions of oscillations and bistability, including the complex behaviors like coexistence of both dynamic regimes. Analogous comparative measurements and analyses were performed for other media—sulfuric, nitric, perchloric, and trifluoroacetic acids—also indicating complex dynamic behaviors. These complexities arise not only due to the difficulties with the precise identification of the composition of the passive layer in every acid but are also due to relatively fast dissolution of V electrode, even in the presence of passive layer, which causes permanent drift of the system’s characteristics. Due to these experimental difficulties, theoretical modeling seems to be an appropriate method to analyze the essential nonlinear dynamic properties of the studied system.