Application of modern electrochemical techniques and electrode materials in determination of trace elements in environment

Voltanimetry (polarography) belongs to the group of traditional electroanalytical methods, which has been successfully used for almost ninety years in (not only) environmental analysis. This technique has achieved many pronounced successes in determination of trace elements due to high sensitivity, preciseness, simple managing and ability of speciation. However, number of voltammetrical devices has decreased in course of last decades. We tried to reveal some reasons, which can be considered as causes of it: stage of instrumentation (therefrom arising low labor productivity) and the use of mercury as traditional electrode material. In this contribution are described two modem types of electrode materials (solid amalgam and composite electrode materials), which can successfully replace the traditionally used electrodes containing liquid mercury. Increase of labor productivity can be achieved by introducing a multichannel device for sequential autonomous measurements developed in our laboratory, which is able to analyze a set (the testing prototype up to 8) of samples in a chosen sequence, where each sample can be analyzed using different method, different parameters, etc.