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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2020 Dec 17.
Published in final edited form as: Anal Chem. 2019 Dec 3;91(24):15833–15839. doi: 10.1021/acs.analchem.9b04149

Figure 1.

Figure 1.

Comparison of a conventional potentiostat (ConStat) with the differential potentiostat (DiffStat) presented herein. Both instruments incorporate Counter, Reference and Working electrodes. A) In the ConStat, current generated by redox active molecules is measured and converted to a voltage proportional to the current. B) The DiffStat contains a second working electrode, W2, usually to serve as a non-faradaic “blank” or control electrode that is not exposed to the redox molecule. Both signal (faradaic) and baseline (non-faradaic) currents can be subtracted by a differential amplifier, yielding a corrected output (W1 - W2). C) Example data shows that the ConStat signal contains both faradaic and non-faradaic currents, while D) the DiffStat significantly reduces non-faradaic current yet preserves the faradaic current.