Polarography and Voltammetry of Organic Compounds

Bersier PM (1985) Applied polarography and voltammetry of organic compounds in practical day-to-day analysis, part I. Review Articles in Critical Reviews in Analytical Chemistry 16(1) 15-79. 

In the book by Keith Identification and Analysis of Organic Pollutants in Air out of the 473 pages only a short chapter of 13 pages, reporting a preliminary study of the potential of electrochemical methods in the analysis of the mixtures of polycyclic aromatic compounds (PAG), is devoted to polarography and voltammetry. 

Perusal of the literature of the last 10 years shows that polarography and voltammetry have been used in the organic field, particularly in the pharmaceutical and biological field for this period, however, more than 250 papers were published, discussing the application of these techniques and of HPLC-EC to the determination of metallorganic (few) and organic pollutants (nearly 400 compounds) in areas of environmental relevance (aquatic bodies, soils, air, foodstuffs and biological matrices). 

Principles and Characteristics Contrary to poten-tiometric methods that operate under null conditions, other electrochemical methods impose an external energy source on the sample to induce chemical reactions that would not otherwise occur spontaneously. It is thus possible to analyse ions and organic compounds that can either be reduced or oxidised electrochemi-cally. Polarography, which is a division of voltammetry, involves partial electrolysis of the analyte at the working electrode. 

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