An electrochemical investigation of photosubstitution processes at glassy-carbon electrodes coated with polymer-bound ruthenium complexes

Glassy-carbon electrodes were coated with (Ru(bpy)/sub 2/Cl(poly(4-vinylpyridine)))Cl. These derivatized electrodes were photolyzed while cyclic voltammograms were recorded. The changes of redox potential observed in the cyclic voltammograms are explained in terms of ligand exchange of the coordinated Cl/sup -/ with H/sub 2/O, ClO/sub 4//sup -/ and CH/sub 3/CN. This opens an easy way to change the redox potential of a fixed ruthenium complex. The demonstrated exchange processes are irreversible. Therefore an information storage, which can be read with suitable electrochemical equipment, is possible.