Applying the deconvolution approach in order to enhance RRDE time resolution: practical issues and limitations

A ring electrode of an RRDE setup is often used to detect a redox active specie produced at the disk electrode. It is especially useful when some side processes occur at the disk (e.g. passivation film growth) along with the main electrochemical reaction that produces the soluble redox-active specie. Unfortunately, the detected ring signal is delayed and smeared so that fast changes of the disk processes intensities cannot be studied. The deconvolution approach is a mathematical data processing procedure that enables reconstruction of the disk signal with hypothetically infinite accuracy. Although there are practical limitations arising mainly from impossibility of exact measurement of the impulse response function and inevitable presence of a noise component in the ring signal used for the reconstruction. In this work a series of calculations were performed in order to investigate the applicability and reliability of the deconvolution approach. Also a procedure to filter out spurious artifacts from the reconstructed disk signal was suggested and tested.