Equilibrium potentials of membrane electrodes.

A simple thermodynamic theory of the equilibrium potentials of membrane electrodes is formulated and applied to the glass electrode for measurement of pH. The new formulation assumes the selective adsorption or binding of specific ions on the surface of the membrane which may or may not be permeable to the ion, and includes the conventional derivation based on reversible ion transport across membranes as a special case. To test the theory, a platinum wire was coated with a mixture of stearic acid and methyl-tri-n-octyl-ammonium stearate. When this coated electrode was immersed in aqueous phosphate solution, its potential was found to be a linear function of pH from pH 2 to 12 with a slope equal to the theoretical value of 59.0 mV per pH unit at 24 degrees .