Fundamental Principles of Organic Electrochemistry: Fundamental Aspects of Electrochemistry Dealing with Organic Molecules - Fundamentals and Applications of Organic Electrochemistry - page 17

Figure 2.4 Cyclic voltammogram of ferrocene
(Fc) and Fermi-level ( E F ) within a metal
electrode along with the HOMO level of Fc in
solution
The form of cyclic voltammogram for ferrocene
redox represents a typical reversible process.
The oxidation peak current ( ) in a reversible
process like a ferrocene redox reaction is:
(2.2)
where n is the number of electrons involved in
the electrode reaction (1 in the case of the
ferrocene redox reaction), c Fc and D Fc are the
bulk concentration and the diffusion coefficient
of ferrocene, respectively, and v is the potential
scan rate. Thus for a reversible CV wave, the
peak current is proportional to the bulk
concentration of a substrate or the square root
of the potential scan rate.
However, the reversible redox reaction is
uncommon in organic electrochemistry since
many organic electrochemical reactions involve
a fast chemical reaction subsequent to electron
transfer (an EC process: the electrode step is E
and the chemical step is C). In this case, the
re-oxidation or re-reduction peak may totally
disappear in the reversal potential scan.