Abstract
Electrochemical sensors are used for detection of antioxidants, vitamins, drugs, pesticides, catecholamines and other electroactive compounds. Cells of the detectors usually contain three electrodes (the working, the reference and the auxiliary) and a potential difference is applied between the working electrode and the reference electrode.
The auxiliary electrode provides this potential difference to be constant. Carbon-based working electrodes are made from glassy carbon, pyrolytic carbon and porous graphite.
The pore size of the graphite is approximately 0.2 mu m so it is a nanoporous material with large internal surface area. Electrochemical detection (ECD) is very selective and sensitive method.
Ultra-high performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC) with ECD is very useful tool for food analysis, clinical diagnostic, toxicology, prediction of xenobiotics metabolism, protein research etc. -mainly in coupling with mass spectrometry. Our project aims to develop a new kit for the determination of plasma free metanephrines, diagnostic markers of tumor pheochromocytoma.
The determination was performed by ion-pair UHPLC with electrochemical Coulochem III detector.