Development of low-cost metal oxide pH electrodes based on the polymeric precursor method

In this work, the polymeric precursor method was used to prepare low-cost solid-state sensors for pH determination based on iridium oxide as the main pH sensitive material. The iridium content was reduced with addition of TiO2, forming the binary system IrOx–TiO2, whose electroanalytical properties were evaluated in comparison with a commercial glass pH electrode. The minimum iridium content which gave suitable results was 30 mol%, and the electrode presented Nernstian and fast response in the pH range from 1 to 13, with no hysteresis effect observed. Besides, the electrode showed high selectivity in the presence of alkali ions as Li+, Na+ or K+. The amount of iridium in the prepared electrodes was very small (<0.1 mg), supporting the efficiency of this method on the simple preparation of functional low-cost pH electrodes.