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  Home > JCE Print > Journal of Chemical Education > Issues > 2005  > March  >
In the Laboratory
Cost-Effective Teacher
A Sensitive Nitrate Ion-Selective Electrode from a Pencil Lead. An Analytical Laboratory Experiment
Tatyana A. Bendikov and Thomas C. Harmon
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Center for Embedded Networked Sensing, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095
Cover
March 2005
Vol. 82 No. 3
p. 439
Abstract
Nitrate ion is an important environmental and human health analyte and thus its detection and quantification is considered essential. This article summarizes a simple procedure for preparing and testing a nitrate ion-selective electrode based on doped polypyrrole films. Everyday pencil leads were used as a substrate for the electrochemical deposition of polypyrrole. Nitrate-doped polypyrrole electrodes, tested potentiometrically for their response to varying NO3–concentrations, exhibited Nernstian behavior (slopes of 54–55 mV per log cycle of nitrate concentration at T = 22°C), with a linear response to nitrate concentrations spanning three orders of magnitude (0.1–1× 10–4 M of NO3–) and a detection limit of 5 ± 1 × 10–5 M of nitrate. The procedure outlined here has the potential to initiate and motivate students with interests in sensor development, micro-fabrication procedures, advanced monitoring of environmental problems, and creating solutions to those problems.
Supplement
Instructions for student, notes for the instructor, and additional experiments are available.
*  Contents JCE2005p0439W.doc (Microsoft Word)
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JCE2005p0439W.pdf

JCE2005p0439W.zip
More Information
*  Citation
 Bendikov, Tatyana A.; Harmon, Thomas C. J. Chem. Educ. 2005 82 439.
*  Keywords
 Environmental Chemistry; Ion Selective Electrodes; Quantitative Analysis
*  History
 Created:
Last Updated:		 February 2, 2005
February 18, 2005
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