in the experiment included potassium permanganate (Merck, India),
glycerol (JHD, China), sulfuric acid (E. Merck, Germany), hydrochloric
acid (RCI Lab-Scan, Thailand), polyvinyl alcohol (Merck, Germany),
dimethyl sulfoxide (Lab-Scan, Ireland), and ethanol (Merck, Germany).
The graphite rod (with a surface area of 0.30 cm2) was
purchased from Alfa Aesar; Analytical grade chemicals and reagents
were purchased and utilized in the experiment as received without
any further modification and purification. For aqueous solution preparation,
the deionized water (DI) having a conductivity of less than 0.2 μS
cm–1 and a resistance of 18.2 MΩ cm was obtained
from an ultrapure water purification system (Barnstead nanopure, Model:
D7031, Thermo Scientific) and was used throughout the whole experiment.