Self-organized gold nanoparticles modified HOPG electrodes: Electrochemical stability and its use for electrochemical nanosensing applications

The presented work shows the development of a performing electrochemical sensor using self-organized gold nanoparticle (Au NP) modified HOPG electrode. Au NPs were functionalized with bisphosphonate-thiol receptors (BP-thiol) whose interactions with Au NP surface were investigated by XPS and FTIR-ATR experiments. It has been shown that the electrochemical stability of modified electrodes increases at potentials higher than-1.3 eV corresponding to the thiol reduction potential. In order to demonstrate the sensing performance of the prepared electrode the electrochemical analysis of copper and silver metal ions was achieved by using square wave voltammetry (SWV). The obtained results show a remarkable performance increase in terms of: the simple fabrication, simple use, and linear behavior over the concentration range from 5 mu M to 0.5 mM, with the detection limit of 5 M. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.