Electrochemistry has a wide variety of applications that benefit from using large surface area electrodes, including electrogravitmetric analysis, electro-organic synthesis, and energy storage. Traditional electrodes are often limited to specific geometries or are expensive. 3D printing these electrodes makes them more adaptable to unique experimental conditions. One major challenge for 3D printed electrodes is that they begin far less conductive than traditional electrode materials. The presented research focused on a competitive 3D printed replacement for traditional expensive electrodes by evaluating the effect of the printed geometry and electrode activation methods. 3D printed electrodes were evaluated using copper electrodeposition to enable a variety of different methods of analysis. Variations in infill, geometry, and layer height were tested. Initial findings demonstrated the importance of the cross-sectional area and electrode length. While activation methods were found to enhance the performance of these electrodes, the 3D printed counter electrodes were found to be limiting in several experiments. These results highlight the variety of factors that need to be optimized as 3D printed electrodes begin to be incorporated into various electrochemical applications.

3D printed large surface area electrodes

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