A Very Interesting New Technique for the Analysis of Alloys.

[NNadir]

3. Thank you for this thought provoking question. My first answer was "no," followed by "I don't know, but let me look...

...in to it."

This technology is, first and foremost involved with metals. People do not generally appreciate this, but electrochemistry can be, and sometimes is, a method of separations, since one can adjust voltages to affect the redox (reduction/oxidation) potential which is generally varies from metal to metal and indeed, from oxidation state to oxidation state for multivalent metals like manganese which features a large number of oxidation states, ranging from +7 (in permanganate) to a formal -3 state in a complex ions known.

Your question inspired me to consider these, and I came across an interesting paper which refers to something (obliquely) about I haven't thought about in some time, zintl salts, which struck me as interesting some time ago with thermochemical cycles in nuclear plants to split water. (It reminds me that I should write that thought down so my son has it when I die.)

Ellis, Adventures with Substances Containing Metals in Negative Oxidation States Inorg. Chem. 2006, 45, 8, 3167–3186.

But let's turn to your question, on reflection, with a little digging around, I can imagine that this approach involving organic polymers could be of interest, although to my knowledge, while depolymerization via electrochemistry has been explored, it has not been, again to my knowledge, to ESI mass spec.

There is a whole field of electrochemical organic chemistry.

I can think of a project (which actually didn't go well) on which I worked a few years ago, where it might have been of interest to have at least thought about it, although probably it would have been a bit too "out there."

Much of what has been written about electrochemical depolymerization concerns the second most common polymer on Earth, after cellulose, which is lignin, the polymer that gives wood much of its strength but is also present in plant matter that is not wood.

Here is an open sourced paper on depolymerization of anthropogenic polymers: Electrochemical C−H/C−C Bond Oxygenation: A Potential Technology for Plastic Depolymerization In theory, I suppose that one could couple this process to mass spec to monitor it, although I'm not sure that it has been done.

Thank you again for your question. It made me think.