Scientific article
OA Policy
English

Increasing the Sensitivity of pH Glass Electrodes with Constant Potential Coulometry at Zero Current

Published inAnalytical chemistry, vol. 96, no. 16, p. 6436-6443
Publication date2024-04-23
First online date2024-04-09
Abstract

It has recently become possible to increase the sensitivity of ion-selective electrodes (ISEs) by imposing a constant cell potential, allowing one to record current spikes with a capacitor placed in series in the circuit. The approach requires a transient current to pass through the measurement cell, which unfortunately may introduce measurement errors and additionally excludes the use of high-impedance indicator electrodes, such as pH glass electrodes. We present here an electronic circuit that overcomes these limitations, where the cell is measured at zero current in combination with a voltage follower, and the current spike and capacitor charging occur entirely within the instrument. The approach avoids the need for a counter electrode, and one may use any electrode useful in potentiometry regardless of its impedance. The characteristics of the circuit were found to approach ideality when evaluated with either an external potential source or an Ag/AgCl electrode. The current may be linearized and extrapolated to further reduce the measurement time. The circuit is further tested with the most common yet very challenging electrode, the pH glass electrode. A precision of 64 μpH was obtained for 0.01 pH change up to 0.05 from a reference solution. Similar pH changes were also measured reliably further away from the reference solution (0.5-0.55) and resulted in a precision of 377 μpH. The limitations of this experimental setup were explored by performing pH calibrations within the measuring range of the probe.

UNIGE research groups
Citation (ISO format)
NUSSBAUM, Robin, JEANNERET GROSJEAN, Stéphane, BAKKER, Eric. Increasing the Sensitivity of pH Glass Electrodes with Constant Potential Coulometry at Zero Current. In: Analytical chemistry, 2024, vol. 96, n° 16, p. 6436–6443. doi: 10.1021/acs.analchem.4c00592
Main files (1)
Article (Published version)
Identifiers
Journal ISSN0003-2700
51views
296downloads

Technical informations

Creation31/03/2025 09:17:24
First validation31/03/2025 09:20:41
Update13/10/2025 11:56:46
Status update31/03/2025 09:20:41
Last indexation27/02/2026 09:19:04
All rights reserved by Archive ouverte UNIGE and the University of GenevaunigeBlack