Electrochemistry coupled to (liquid chromatography/) mass spectrometry—Current state and future perspectives

The coupling of electrochemistry (EC) to different mass spectrometric (MS) techniques in off-line and especially in on-line approaches is a quickly growing research field in analytical chemistry with numerous distinct objectives. Depending on the analytical problem, a separation step can be further integrated according to the instrumental set-up and, most frequently, liquid chromatography (LC) is selected for this purpose. In this review, various scientific areas of application for this EC/(LC/)MS hybrid method are presented and discussed in detail. Therefore, one major division is made between those applications which are already successfully used on a large scale (current state), and those which have shown promising results for future utilization (future perspectives). The reader shall be provided with a thorough overview on the capabilities of the combination of EC/(LC/)MS and the drawbacks which result in further optimization and exploration of this technique. The major topics addressed in this review include the role of EC/(LC/)MS for drug metabolism studies, peptide, protein and DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) research and quantification strategies. Promising future applications that are presented and evaluated comprise the fields of toxicology and forensics, targeted product synthesis and environmental analysis.