Electrochemical Detection in Liquid Chromatography: Application to Organometallic Speciation

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The development of a new technique for the measurement of organometallic species is presented. It combines the resolution of high performance liquid chromatography with sensitive electrochemical detection used in a reductive mode. Past difficulties with this detection system have been overcome including the choice of a suitable working electrode and purification of the solvent. The redox behavior of the organometals in the chromatographic solvent was studied by cyclic voltammetry in order to optimize the detector cell potential. A separation of organomercurials and a multielement organometal mixture demonstrate the applicability of the system. Linear calibration curves can be obtained over a wide concentration range the detection limit for trimethyllead cation is about 0.1 ng.