Flow-injection determination of iodide ion in nuclear emergency tablets, using boron-doped diamond thin film electrode

The electrochemical determination of iodide was studied at boron-doped diamond thin film electrodes (BDD) using cyclic voltammetry (CV) and flow-injection (FI) analysis, with amperometric detection. Cyclic voltammetry of iodide was conducted in a phosphate buffer pH 5. Experiments were performed using glassy carbon (GC) electrode as a comparison. Well-defined oxidation waves of the quasi-reversible cyclic voltammograms were observed at both electrodes. Voltammetric signal-to-background ratios (S/B) were comparable. However, the GC electrode gives much greater in the background current as usual. The potential sweep rate dependence exhibited that the peak current of iodide oxidation at 1 mM varied linearly (r² = 0.998) with the square root of the scan rate, from 0.01 to 0.30 V s⁻¹. This result indicates that the reaction is a diffusion-controlled process with negligible adsorption on BDD surface, at this iodide concentration. Results of the flow-injection analysis show a highly reproducible amperometric response. The linear working range was observed up to 200 μM (r² = 0.999). The detection limit, as low as 0.01 μM (3σ of blank), was obtained. This method was successfully applied for quantification of iodide contents in nuclear emergency tablets.