Boron Doped Diamond Microelectrodes and Microelectrode Arrays in Organic Electrochemistry

Boron doped diamond (BDD) has been recognized as nearly ideal electrode material for many electrochemical applications due to the low and stable background current over a wide potential range, corrosion and fouling resistance, high thermal conductivity, and high current densities. Microelectrodes and microelectrode arrays possess numerous attractive features for electrochemistry including reduced iR drop, low capacitive-charging currents, and steady-state diffusion currents. Coupling the advantages of the microelectrodes and their arrays with the usefulness of BDD is presented and discussed in this review on the examples of existing miniaturized BDD devices and their applications in organic electrochemistry. The varieties in their fabrication, construction, and applications in organic electrochemistry are presented. The latter include mainly electroanalysis, where single BDD microelectrodes have been employed as amperometric sensors in capillary electrophoretic techniques including electrophoretic microchips and other liquid flow systems, and further for in vivo/in vitro detection of biogenic compounds. Applications of BDD microelectrode arrays are rather limited, as their construction is a very challenging task and recent studies are more concerned with their fabrication and structural and electrochemical characterization. Thus, the techniques for the fabrication of such arrays and their construction are reviewed and their possibilities and limitations in organic electrochemistry based on existing results are discussed.