Electrochemical Test System for Analysis of Sulfur-Containing Organic Substances

Abstract

The paper discusses selection of a set of metals for an electrochemical test system used for the detection of sulfur-containing organic substances. Analytical studies of organic sulfur compounds are very important since these compounds are widely used in medicine, biology, oil refining industry, etc. Quantitative determination and identification of sulfur-containing substances is essential for solving environmental problems. The electrochemical test system for analysis of organic substances is a solution containing a set of cations of various metals that have the ability to form complex compounds with analytes. Thereby, a single electrode can be used to carry out electrochemical multisensory analysis because metal cations play the role of sensors. Thus, there is no need to use a set of several working (indicator) electrodes, the number of which determines the number of informative parameters. Since sets of metals for test systems may slightly differ from each other, we need to select an optimal set for a specific problem. According to the study results, a set of metals for sulfur-containing organic substances consists of zinc, gallium and copper. The test system composed of these metals gives reliable results of electroanalytical determination of organic compounds of this class. The expediency of using such a test system is confirmed by comparative estimation of the Euclidean distances between the vector representations of the analytes and sulfur-containing organic compounds presented in the previously created database. Software for experimental data processing, visualization, and comparative analysis of the vector representations and the database components is developed.