Photoelectrocatalytic oxidation of formaldehyde using a Ti/TiO2 foil electrode. Application for its novel and simple photoelectrochemical determination

It was firstly described, that a TiO2 film modified titanium foil electrode (Ti/TiO2) shows an efficient photoelectrocatalytic activity towards formaldehyde oxidation in a phosphate buffer solution. Ti/TiO2 foil electrode was prepared by anodizing Ti foil in aqueous solution. Also, this electrode was applied for the hydrodynamic photoamperometry measurement of formaldehyde in the optimum conditions (pH 7.0 as biological pH and bias potential 0.8 V vs. reference electrode). The photoelectrocatalytic oxidation photocurrent of the photoelectrode determined by photoamperometry method was linearly dependent on the formaldehyde concentration and the linearity range obtained was 6.70×10−4–1.48×10−2 mol L−1. Detection limit was found to be 3.09×10−4 mol L−1 (2σ).