A numerical method of calculating secondary current distributions in electrochemical cells

A numerical method is proposed based on the analogy between the potential distribution in an electrolytic solution and the temperature distribution in a heat-conducting medium. Thus the equation of non-steady-state heat conduction which contains a hypothetical temperaturev(x, y, t) is solved numerically with appropriate boundary conditions. In the steady state the distribution ofv(x, y, t) corresponds to the distribution of potentialφ _s (x,y) which satisfies Laplace's equation. The method is useful not only for conventional electrochemical cells but also for complicated systems such as a bipolar electrode for which boundary conditions provide neither the potential nor the current density at the electrode surface.