A Magnesium Amalgam Reference Electrode for use in N,N-Dimethylformamide

A magnesium amalgam reference lectrode suitable for use in N,N-dimethylformamide is described. The amalgam (XMg = 10-3) was found to be stable in DMF and to produce a thermodynamically correct potential. Recent work on the ambient emperature insertion of mag-nesium into (x-U308 (1) led to the development of a magnesium containing reference electrode. The need for such an elec-trode arises in connection with electrochemical measurement of thermodynamic quantities for the reaction xMg(s) + U3Os(s) ~ MgxU3Os(s) [1] By integration of the quilibrium potential for the corre-sponding cell Mg/Mg2+/MgxU308 over a range of values from 0 to x, the free energy of insertion can be calculated. However, the true thermodynamic equilibrium potential of the above cell cannot be measured directly due to the irreversible behavior of pure magnesium in aprotic solvents (2, 3). As Brown and Mcin