The use of Chemically Modified Electrodes for Detectors of Biomedical Substances in Liquid Chromatography and Flow Injection Analysis

Abstract

This chapter presents the use of chemically modified electrodes (CME) for detectors of biomedical substances in liquid chromatography and flow injection analysis. The use of CMEs as electrochemical detectors in the flowing streams has become a potential powerful tool for chemical, clinical, pharmaceutical, and environmental sciences in recent years. The deliberately tailored electrode surface CME offers a specific chemical and physical environment for catalytic reactions, ion exchange, complexation, perselectivity, and the incorporation of biocomponents for the analytes. If an ionic film is coated onto the electrode, the film will exclude species of the same charge and exchange with species of the opposite charge. The Nafion film was successfully incorporated onto a glassy carbon electrode (GC) for EC detector, showing the importantly improved selectivity toward catecholamines that are cationic ions in LC pH range, while excluding the interfering species. Electrochemical detection of biological macromolecules in a flow system is very important in biological studies.