Potassium-Selective Solid-Contact Electrode with High-Capacitance Hydrous Iridium Dioxide in the Transduction Layer

This work presents new material for solid-contact layers—hydrous iridium dioxide IrO(2)·2H(2)O, characterized by high electrical capacitance value, evaluated using chronopotentiometry (1.22 mF) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (1.57 mF). The remarkable electrical parameters of layers resulted in great analytical parameters of IrO(2)·2H(2)O-contacted potassium-selective electrodes. Various parameters of ion-selective electrodes were examined in the scope of this work using a potentiometry method including: linear range, repeatability, stability of potentiometric response and sensitivity to varying measurement conditions. The analytical parameters obtained for solid-contact electrodes were compared with the ones obtained for coated disc electrodes to evaluate the influence of the iridium dioxide layer. The linear range of the IrO(2)·2H(2)O-contacted K(+)-selective electrodes covered concentrations of K(+) ions from 10(−6) to 10(−1) M and the potential stability was estimated at 0.097 mV/h. The IrO(2)·2H(2)O-contacted electrodes turned out to be insensitive to varying light exposure and changes in the pH values of measured solutions (in the pH range of 2 to 10.5). A water layer test proved that, contrary to the coated disc electrode, the substantial water film is not formed between the ion-selective membrane and iridium dioxide layer.