High sensitive detection of sulfuric compounds using electrochemical impedance

Attention has been focused recently on the harmful effects and malodor of sulfuric compounds; therefore, various laws have been enacted to regulate environmental concentration and use of most sulfuric compounds. In order to avoid sulfuric malodor, a reasonable, easy, sensitive, and selective measuring method to detect sulfuric compounds is required. In this research, we adopted the specific adsorption of sulfuric compounds to a metal surface as a sensing principle. It was suggested that polarization is an important factor of molecular recognition from results obtained by quartz crystal microbalance (QCM), ellipsometry, and stripping voltammetry (SV). Therefore, we used cyclic surface polarization impedance (cSPI), based on electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) under the dynamic control of an electrode potential and a constant phase element (CPE) impedance, as a detecting method for sulfuric compounds. As a result, we could detect three sulfuric compounds, hydrogen sulfide, methyl mercaptan, and dimethyl sulfide, with this method at sub ppb levels and discriminate the three sulfuric compounds.