- #1
etotheipi
My teacher insists that the reverse reaction has a negated electrode potential (oxidation potential?).
This doesn’t make sense to me, since I am under the impression that the electrode potential is a property of the half cell at equilibrium and not of either of the reactions in a particular direction. That is, the potential difference E(cell) should be simply the difference of the electrode potentials when the reactions in each cell are in equilibrium.
What is the logic behind assigning different electrode potentials to different directions of the reaction? Isn’t the underlying physics just the difference between the raw potentials of each electrode?
This doesn’t make sense to me, since I am under the impression that the electrode potential is a property of the half cell at equilibrium and not of either of the reactions in a particular direction. That is, the potential difference E(cell) should be simply the difference of the electrode potentials when the reactions in each cell are in equilibrium.
What is the logic behind assigning different electrode potentials to different directions of the reaction? Isn’t the underlying physics just the difference between the raw potentials of each electrode?
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