Voltammetry for Monitoring Platinum, Palladium and Rhodium in Environmental and Food Matrices

The interest of researchers on quantification of Pt, Pd and Rh in the environmental and food matrices is the consequence of the production of catalytic converters for car engines. Sensitization, mutagenic effects in bacterial and mammalian cells, and increased tumour incidence are the effects of Pt, Pd and Rh at high concentrations reported in medical and occupational researches while their effects at the low environmental concentrations have not been determined. Voltammetric techniques are very advantageous to quantify PGEs in environmental and food matrices due to their intrinsic sensitivity derived from the electrochemical pre-concentration of the analyte at the electrode surface, the capability to distinguish between different redox species and/or labile from non-labile metal complexes, with applications for metal speciation studies. The analysis of PGEs by spectrophotometric methods (atomic absorption, ICP-MS, ICP-OES, etc.) suffers from several practical problems. In this article we take into consideration the research concerning environmental and food matrices from 1996 to 2022.