A short introduction to digital simulations in electrochemistry: simulating the Cottrell experiment in NI LabVIEW

Abstract

A brief introduction to the use of digital simulations in electrochemistry is given by a detailed description of the simulation of Cottrell’s experiment in the LabVIEW programming language. A step-by-step approach is followed and different simulation techniques (explicit and implicit Euler, Runge–Kutta and Crank–Nicolson methods) are applied. The applied techniques are introduced and discussed on the basis of Padé approximants. The paper might be found useful by undergraduate and graduate students familiarizing themselves with the digital simulation of electrochemical problems, as well as by university lecturers involved with the teaching of theoretical electrochemistry.

Keywords

• Explicit and implicit Euler method
• Runge–Kutta methods
• Crank–Nicolson method
• Padé approximants