Rapidly renewable and reproducible electropolymerized surface at a monomer modified carbon paste electrode

Abstract

A novel method of generating a rapidly renewable and reproducible polymer coated electrode surface is proposed. This involves in situ electropolymerization at a monomer modified carbon paste electrode. A carbon paste electrode bulk modified with 2-methyl-8-hydroxyquinoline was used to demonstrate this approach. The polymer modified carbon paste electrode obtained by electropolymerization was found to be useful for trace determination of Cu(II), involving preconcentration and anodic stripping procedures. It was also shown that the polymer coated electrode surface could be renewed quickly and reproducibly after each determination. An optimized procedure was developed subsequently for the determination of Cu(II) and this was employed for the determination of Cu(II) in a certified water quality control sample. Although the proposed method was demonstrated for Cu(II) determination, in principle, it can be more generally useful in applications involving polymer modified electrodes.