Electrochemical Detectors in HPLC and Ion Chromatography

Back in 1952, the renowned Polish electrochemist Wiktor Kemula introduced chromato-polarography,¹ i.e., polaro-graphic detection for liquid chromatography. This technique continued to develop slowly until the early 1970s (for a review see Reference 2) when modem high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) emerged. This new, highly efficient chromatographc method could only be. used with detectors ensuring low dispersion. It was not easy to modify the dropping mercury electrode cells to satisfy this requirement. However, at the same time, electroanalytical chemists, who already had much experience in using carbon-based electrodes for oxidative detection in flow analysis, put forward the idea of oxidative amperometric detection in liquid chromatography.^3,4 In this technique, solid or quasi-solid (paste) electrodes were used and this made possible the construction of miniaturized cells with just a few microliter volume.