The platinum disk electrode has been tested as a working electrode for the cathodic reduction of N2O in aqueous solutions using 0.2 M K2SO4 as supporting electrolyte, buffered at pH = 12, and a scan rate of 100 mV s-1. The well-resolved cathodic peaks were observed for the solutions of N2O in the concentration range of 0 – 10.34 mM. A strong linear correlation was seen between the cathodic peak current and N2O concentration. The detection limit of the developed method amounts to c(N2O) = 0.0104 mM, and the quantification limit amounts to c(N2O) = 0.0191 mM. The error of these determination methods was between 4.0 and 5.1 % for higher N2O concentrations (c(N2O) > 1 mM) and 7.4 to 12.3 % for N2O concentrations below 0.5 mM. The presence of O2 and CO2 did not influence the determination of N2O in solution.

Chemistry