A Cell Holder for Simultaneous In-Situ X-Ray Diffraction and Electrochemical Studies: Part 1—Zinc in a Sodium Chloride Solution

A novel device (cell holder) to carry out electrochemical characterization simultaneously in-situ with x-ray analysis is presented. The cell holder can be mounted in most diffrac-tometers found in conventional research laboratories. This device can be used for a number of applications in different areas of electrochemistry such as electroplating, corrosion, and batteries. A typical example related to corrosion is demonstrated by studying the corrosion product formation on Zn immersed in 0.1 M sodium chloride (NaCl; pH 7.4). The x-ray diffraction patterns obtained show that it is possible to follow in-situ the sequence of formation of an oxide-chloride layer as a function of time. Some particular advantages for using this cell holder are that the cell holder does not use any window that can contribute to unwanted peaks; it does not need any special camera and is open to air to simulate a real corrosion process; and it does not need special radiation such as synchrotron radiation.