Thermal Diffusion Potentials and the Soret Effect

Abstract

IN a recent communication¹, Tyrrell and Colledge have directed attention to the possibility of studying the Soret effect in solutions of electrolytes by observations of the e.m.f. of non-isothermal cells. In such cells, two reversible electrodes are maintained at different temperatures; owing to thermal diffusion, the concentration of solute around one electrode increases and that around the other decreases. In consequence, an additional e.m.f. should gradually be set up, which, for small temperature differences, is simply the e.m.f. of an isothermal concentration cell (with transport) operating at the mean temperature.