Controlled-current techniques large steps

If methods are used in which the overall recovery is 70% or above, and if the possibility of accidental but undetected very large losses is reduced by using a minimum of steps and transfer operations, or by automation, it is questionable whether in practice the precision will be greatly increased by current techniques of using internal radioactive standards. In the case of many urinaiy steroids, conjugated internal standards would be required for full control of the procedure and are not yet generally available. Finally the technique itself is not error-free, even in the absence of isotope effects, and the usual techniques employed so far often involve very small volumes of volatile solvents in which transfer errors can be large unless very superior manual technique is used. 

Two of the electrochemical techniques used in protein film voltammetry are shown in Fig. 4-3. In cyclic voltammetry the electrode potential is swept in a linear manner back and forth between two limits. The rate at which the potential is scanned defines the time scale of the experiment and this can be varied from < 1 mV s to > 1000 V s . This is a very large dynamic range, and it is possible to carry out both steady-state and transient experiments on the same sample of enzyme. " Cyclic voltammetry is important because it provides the big picture and produces a signal that links the reaction or active site of interest to a particular potential. In chronoamperometry, the current is monitored at a constant potential following a perturbation such as a step to this potential or addition of a substrate. This experiment is important because it separates the potential and time dependencies of a response. In both types of experiment, it is usually important to be able to rotate the electrode in order to control transport of the substrate and product to and from the enzyme film. 

The great advantage of the RDE over other techniques, such as cyclic voltammetry or potential-step, is the possibility of varying the rate of mass transport to the electrode surface over a large range and in a controlled way, without the need for rapid changes in electrode potential, which lead to double-layer charging current contributions. 

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