In situ electrochemical dissolution of platinum and gold in organic-based solvent

Metal corrosion: Going organic A technique to study the electrochemical dissolution of metals has been upgraded to enable insights into their dissolution in organic media. The ubiquitous use of metals means that understanding their stability in various environments is important. Techniques that involve the coupling of flow cells to mass spectrometers have been developed to monitor the dissolution of noble metals in situ. However, these techniques have been limited to aqueous electrolytes, even though components such as batteries and capacitors function in pure organic or mixed organic/aqueous phases. Now, a team led by Vid Simon Šelih and Nejc Hodnik from the National Institute of Chemistry, Ljubljana, Slovenia, have developed a technique based on the coupling of an electrochemical flow cell to inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry that enables the in-situ monitoring of electrochemical metal dissolution in pure organic media.