Standard Electrode Potentials

We started off looking at the Hydrogen Half-Cell. This is used as a standard electrode to assign "voltages" to every other half-cell.

The convention is to have the hydrogen half-cell as the anode (on the left). However, some half-cells give a negative voltage. This means the hydrogen half-cell is actually being reduced (so is the cathode) and the other half-cell is being oxidised.

We use the values from these cells (with hydrogen) to assign standard electrode potentials to every possible half-cell (and redox pair). We use these to predict which pair would be at the anode and which would be at the cathode. The smaller electrode potential will be oxidised, so will be at the anode.