Polarstat: An Arduino Based Potentiostat for Low-Power Electrochemical Applications

A potentiostatic circuit for low-power applications in the range of +/- 3.3 V and +/- 13.75 mA is developed. The device achieves a full-scale resolution of approximate to 1.6 mV and approximate to 1 mu A - sufficient for a wide range of electroanalytical experiments. For controlling the potentiostat a Python-based graphical user interface (GUI) is developed and implemented in our open-source electrochemistry software Polarographica. This enables electroanalytical experiments such as cyclic voltammetry (CV) and chronoamperometry (CA) in a live-graphing environment at an operational convenience similar to commercial devices, combined with a powerful tool for subsequent data analysis. The performance of our potentiostat is validated by the excellent agreement of CV and CA data acquired with five different in-house built devices and a commercial Gamry Reference 620. Finally, we provide a printed circuit board (PCB) design of our device as an Arduino shield that requires only a minimum of additional components. This powerful open-source tool is suitable for customized electrochemical experiments at material costs of less than 40 euro.