An investigation of the formation of thermoelectric EMF in aqueous solutions of electrolytes

The current article analyzes the process of thermoelectric EMF formation on the basis of equations describing the electric potential differences fixed by electrodes in an electrolyte solution under non-isothermal conditions. The authors also conduct an analysis of the contributions to the measured signal from various effects and their changes over time. A method for measuring the thermoelectric EMF is proposed, which allows identifying individual components of the resulting potential difference. Based on the analysis of the obtained experimental results, the article demonstrates that the main contribution to the measured difference of thermoelectric potentials, in the narrow sens, is made by the thermodiffusion difference of electric potentials, which is formed in the initial state.