Simple pH-Electrode Circuit

A pH electrode measures hydrogen ion (H+) activity and produces an electrical potential or voltage. The operation of the pH electrode is based on the principle that an electric potential develops when two liquids of different pH come into contact at opposite sides of a thin glass membrane. This is a design circuit for the measurement. This is the figure of the circuit.

Amplifier U1 off sets the pH electrode by 512 mV. This is achieved by using National's LM4140A-1.0 precision micro power low-dropout voltage reference that produces an accurate 1.024V. That voltage is divided in half to equal 512 mV by the 10 kΩ resistor divider. The output of amplifier U1, which is set up in a unity-gain configuration, biases the reference electrode of the pH electrode with the same voltage, 512 mV, at low impedance. The pH-measuring electrode will produce a voltage which rides on top of this 512 mV bias voltage. In effect, the circuit shifts the bipolar pH-electrode signal to a uni-polar signal for use in a single-supply system. The second amplifier U2 is set up in a unity-gain configuration and buffers the output of the pH electrode. Again, a high-input impedance buffer between the pH electrode and the measurement instrument allows the circuit to interface with a greater variety of measurement instruments including those with lower input impedance. In most applications, the output voltage of the pH electrode is high enough to use without additional amplification. If amplification is required, this circuit can easily be modified by adding gain resistors to U2.