Surface oxidation of gold nanoparticles supported on a glassy carbon electrode in sulphuric acid medium: contrasts with the behaviour of 'macro' gold

Consecutive electro-oxidation and reduction cycling of gold macroelectrodes in sulphuric acid medium is a widely-used cleaning and calibration procedure. In this paper this method is applied to electrodeposited nanoparticles revealing significant differences in the electro-oxidation process and the cleaning effectiveness. This suggests a higher density of surface defects on the nanoparticles.