The behaviour of two types of copper ion-selective electrodes in different copper(II)-ligand systems

The behaviour of two types of solid-state homogeneous sensors for copper(II), one based on pressed pellets of ternary CuAgSe and the other on thin-layer electroplated Cu(2-x)Se, in 12 different copper(II)-ligand systems, has been thoroughly investigated. Both electrodes exhibit anomalous behaviour when the ligands are of complexone type, the effect of the complexones on the deviations increasing in the order IDA < NTA < EDTA approximately DTPA, and being practically the same for the two types of sensors, thus disproving a previous suggestion that the anomaly is due to the silver in the silver-containing sensors. The experimental data do not support the specific ligand-adsorption hypothesis either. The observed deviations are tentatively explained on the basis that, as suggested by the selectivity coefficients, both sensors act as primary copper(I) ion-selective electrodes rather than copper(II)-electrodes. Thus, at very low copper(II) concentrations, according to the extended Nikolskii equation, the [Cu(I)]/[Cu(II)] ratio at the electrode surface determines the electrode sensitivity towards Cu(II). The lower detection limit could be improved by pH-control and selective complexation of Cu(I). This hypothesis has been proved experimentally. If the copper(I) activity on the electrode surface is decreased, the anomaly observed for the Cu(II)-NTA system disappears and decreases considerably for the Cu(II)-EDTA and Cu(II)-DTPA systems.