This review will illustrate how it is possible to develop ion-selective electrode (ISE) methodologies that meet the stringent requirements (i.e., high selectivities and very low detection limits) for the analysis of important analytes in the environment, and will present a variety of examples on the application of ISEs in environmental analysis. Despite the experimental biases that have limited the analytical performance of ISEs through apparently high detection limits and modest selectivities, there has been a plethora of research in the application of ISEs in the monitoring of environmentally important trace metals and anions in natural waters and soils. Most popular has been the analysis of free metals in natural waters, as this parameter is known to be a master variable in the uptake and toxicology of trace metals on aquatic biota reflecting the bioavailability of trace metals in the environment. Furthermore, as copper is a major trace metal in coastal waters due to its extensive use in antifouling paints on sea vessels and structures, there are many reports in the literature on the use of the copper ISE in assays of either free copper or the copper complexing capacity of natural waters and soil peats. Moreover, there have been a variety of studies showing a strong correlation between free copper levels and the toxicity of copper on a variety of marine and fresh water organisms. Nevertheless, there are numerous reports in the literature that have used ISEs to monitor important anions such as fluoride, phosphate, sulfate, nitrate, nitrite, chloride, cyanide, etc., as well as other important cations such as ammonium and chromium(VI) in waste and natural waters. In conclusion, this review will present new and interesting perspectives on the application of ISEs in environmental analysis using approaches such as real-time remote monitoring of water quality, shipboard monitoring of environmentally important analytes using flow analysis instrumentation, the use of robust all-solid-state ISEs in submersible instruments for long-term deployment in the field, and innovative analytical approaches such as backside calibration and switchtrodes that avoid standard addition analysis and the concomitant perturbation in analyte speciation in natural samples.

This study aims to develop a novel approach for the production of analytically robust and miniaturized polymeric ion sensors that are vitally important in modern analytical chemistry (e.g., clinical chemistry using single blood droplets, modern biosensors measuring clouds of ions released from nanoparticle tagged biomolecules, lab-on-a-chip applications, etc.). This research has shown that the use of a water repellent polymethyl methacrylate/polydecyl methacrylate (PMMA/PDMA) copolymer as the ion sensing membrane, along with a hydrophobic poly(3-octylthiophene 2,5-diyl) (POT) solid-contact as the ion-to-electron transducer, is an excellent strategy for avoiding the detrimental water layer formed at the buried interface of solid-contact ISEs. Accordingly, it has been necessary to implement a rigorous surface analysis scheme employing electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), in-situ neutron reflectometry/EIS (NR/EIS), secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) and small angle neutron scattering (SANS) to probe structurally the solid-contact/membrane interface, so as to identify the conditions that eliminate the undesirable water layer in all solid-state polymeric ion sensors. In this work, we provide the first experimental evidence that the PMMA/PDMA copolymer system is susceptible to water “pooling” at the interface in areas surrounding physical imperfections in the solid-contact, with the exposure time for such an event in a PMMA/PDMA copolymer ISE taking nearly twenty times longer than that for a plasticized polyvinyl chloride (PVC) ISE, and the simultaneous use of a hydrophobic POT solid-contact with a PMMA/PDMA membrane can eliminate totally this water layer problem.

This paper presents the very first direct structural evidence for the formation of a 100 +/- 10 A water layer in coated-wire polymeric-membrane ion-selective electrodes (ISEs).