April 2014 Archives

A group led by Prof. Julie V. Macpherson (Warwick University, England) has reported electrochemical X-ray fluorescence, which can quantitatively detect heavy metals in solution. In this technique, electrochemical preconcentration of a species of interest onto the target electrode is achieved by cathodic electro-deposition. X-ray fluorescence can then help unambiguous elemental identification and quantification of metal concentration. The key is that the electrochemical preconcentration step improves the detection limit by over 4 orders of magnitude, and it can reach the sub-ppb level. For more information, see the paper, "Electrochemical X-ray Fluorescence Spectroscopy for Trace Heavy Metal Analysis: Enhancing X-ray Fluorescence Detection Capabilities by Four Orders of Magnitude", L. A. Hutton et al., Anal. Chem., 86, 4566 (2014).