Silver amalgam electrodes – a look back at the last five years of their development and applications

Abstract

Different types of silver amalgam electrodes have been introduced as modern and promising replacements for traditional mercury electrodes. Advantages and possibilities of these novel electrode materials were highlighted and demonstrated at a number of sensitive voltammetric and amperometric (HPLC, flow injection analysis) methods developed in our UNESCO Laboratory of Environmental Electrochemistry in the last five years. The determined analytes were hazardous organic chemical carcinogens and genotoxic environmental pollutants, pesticides, antitumor, antibiotic and antivirotic drugs, and explosives containing electrochemically reducible nitro, nitroso, azido, and oxo groups.