Unbiased selectivity coefficients obtained for the pulsed chronopotentiometric polymeric membrane ion sensors.

We report here on the successful observation of the unbiased thermodynamic selectivity of ion-selective sensors working in normal pulse chronopotentiometric mode (pulstrodes). In contrast to ion-selective electrodes, the pulstrodes do not require careful counterbalancing of the transmembrane ionic fluxes to achieve unbiased thermodynamic selectivity. The pulstrodes can work under asymmetric conditions, which are often encountered in practice. The composition of the inner filling solution did not affect the sensor response, indicating that the transmembrane flux of primary ions was indeed effectively suppressed in the absence of ion exchanger. For the K-selective sensor considered here, an improvement of Mg discrimination by a factor of 1000 was demonstrated.