The benzodiazepine class of drugs are characterised by a readily electrochemically reducible azomethine group. A number are also substituted by other electrochemically active nitro, N-oxide, and carbonyl groups, making them readily accessible to electrochemical determination. Techniques such as polarography, voltammetry, and potentiometry have been employed for pharmaceutical and biomedical samples, requiring little sample preparation. This review describes current developments in the design and applications of electrochemical-based approaches for the determination of the benzodiazepine class of drugs form their introduction in the early 1960s to 2019. Throughout this period, state-of-the-art electroanalytical techniques have been reported for their determination. Polarography was first employed focused on mechanistic investigations. Subsequent studies showed the adsorption of many the benzodiazepines at Hg electrodes allowed for the highly sensitive technique of adsorptive stripping voltammetry to be employed. The development and introduction of other working electrode materials such as carbon led to techniques such as voltammetry to become commonly reported, and the modification of these electrodes has now become the most commonly employed approach using molecularly imprinting and nanotechnology.
Keywords: analysis; benzodiazepine; biomedical; electrochemistry; forensic; polarography; review; voltammetry.