NEW CHALLENGES IN ELECTROCHEMISTRY AND ELECTROANALYSIS

The challenges and opportunities that face electrochemistry and electroanalytical chemistry arise from societal needs, advances in technology, and from the emergence of important new scientific areas and problems. Our ability to construct very small electrodes, sometimes with nanometer dimensions, and to measure small currents generated at these, have made possible measurements at very short times and in very resistive solvents. These new solvents, such as liquid SO2 or supercritical fluids, have, in turn, led to the investigation of greatly expanded potential regimes. The invention of scanning probe microscopies (e.g., STM, SECM) now allow very high resolution examination of the topography and chemical nature of electrode surfaces. Electrochemical methods should continue to play an important role in new fields, e.g., molecular biology and materials science. For example, interactions of molecules with DNA can be probed by voltammetric measurements and highly sensitive analytical methods based on electrogenerated chemiluminescent labels attached to antibodies have been developed.