Improvements
Dramatically better discrimination against the capacitive current can be obtained using the tast and pulse polarographic techniques. These have been developed with introduction of analog and digital electronic potentiostats. A first major improvement is obtained, if the current is only measured at the end of each drop lifetime (tast polarography). An even greater enhancement has been the introduction of differential pulse polarography. Here, the current is measured before the beginning and before the end of short potential pulses. The latter are superimposed to the linear potential-time-function of the voltammetric scan. Typical amplitudes of these pulses range between 10 and 50 mV, whereas pulse duration is 20 to 50 ms. The difference between both current values is that taken as the analytical signal. This technique results in a 100 to 1000-fold improvement of the detection limit, because the capacitive component is effectively suppressed.
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