ELECTROCHEMISTRY II

Electrochemical Series 
                  "Electrochemical series is a list of metal electrodes arranged in the decending order of standard reduction potentials."

•  Standard reduction potentials of electrodes can be determined by connecting  the electrode with standard hydrogen electrode, whose reduction potential is arbitarily taken as zero volts.

• According to IUPAC conventions SHE should always be connected in the right hand side. 

• Let's determine the standard reduction potential of zinc electrode as follows

• Thus the reduction potential of zinc is found to be - 0.76 V .The negative sign shows that zinc cannot be reduced easily i.e., it can easily undergo oxidation.
• Since the metals are arranged in the decending order of reduction potentials, the metals present in the top of the series undergo reduction(strong oxidising agents) and the metals present below undergo oxidation(strong reducing agents).