Recent Advances on Impedimetric Electroanalysis with Non-commercial Portable Instruments: A Mini Review

Abstract

Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) is one of the most important methods for studying the electrochemical interface. The instrumentation for its implementation consists of an electrochemical cell and a potentiostat with a frequency analyzer. Several authors have demonstrated the feasibility of designing and constructing low-cost, in-lab portable potentiostats for EIS. This type of electrochemical instrument reduces research costs, allows in-field analysis, enables adaptation to specific experimental conditions, as well as modern capabilities such as machine learning (ML) techniques or Internet of Things (IoT) integration. The use of portable EIS devices for substance identification and quantification, i.e., electroanalysis, has been reported. Although these applications are more limited than for interface characterization, some progress has been made in recent years. This paper presents a mini-review of EIS electroanalysis performed with in-lab portable instruments. The aim is to show different options for the implementation of EIS as investigation technique when portability is needed for in-field impedimetric analysis or applications where available commercial instruments do not work.