Readout Circuitry Moving Average for Sensing Redox Reaction in 3-electrode Cells

This paper presents the effect of moving average algorithm incorporated in a potentiostat circuit that acts as a readout interfacing circuit for a 3-electrode cell system. The potentiostat senses redox reaction with an internal Differential Pulse Voltammetry (DPV) electroanalytical technique provided by an ARM Cortex-M microcontroller. The moving average calculation is embedded in the applied microcontroller. Two moving average techniques are compared: Simple Moving Average, (SMA) and Adjacent Averaging, (AA). The objective is to reduce noise during redox reaction current sensing when the potentiostat hardware implementation is constructed using a single microcontroller with open shelf electronics. DPV current properties of 3-electrode cell redox reaction in 10mM of Ferricyanide solution was measured by the designed potentiostat and subjected to moving average to smoothen the data. It is found that even though the real-time moving average techniques are able to reduce noise by 99%, both approaches reduce peak current vs time measured at the output of the potentiostat. The findings provide important information for interpreting sensor behavior accurately based on in-situ measured values.