Influence of Surface Adsorption on the Interfacial Electron Transfer of Flavin Adenine Dinucleotide and Glucose Oxidase at Carbon Nanotube and Nitrogen-Doped Carbon Nanotube Electrodes

The adsorption of flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD) and glucose oxidase (GOx) onto carbon nanotube (CNT) and nitrogen-doped CNT (N-CNT) electrodes was investigated and found to obey Langmuir adsorption isotherm characteristics. The amount adsorbed and adsorption maximum are dependent on exposure time, the concentration of adsorbate, and the ionic strength of the solution. The formal potentials measured for FAD and GOx are identical, indicating that the observed electroactivity is from FAD, the redox reaction center of GOx. When glucose is added to GOx adsorbed onto CNT/N-CNT electrodes, direct electron transfer (DET) from enzyme-active FAD is not observed. However, efficient mediated electron transfer (MET) occurs if an appropriate electron mediator is placed in solution, or the natural electron mediator oxygen is used, indicating that GOx is adsorbed and active on CNT/N-CNT electrodes. The observed surface-confined redox reaction at both CNT and N-CNT electrodes is from FAD that either specifically adsorbs from solution or adsorbs from the holoprotein subsequently inactivating the enzyme. The splitting of cathodic and anodic peak potentials as a function of scan rate provides a way to measure the heterogeneous electron-transfer rate constant (k(s)) using Laviron's method. However, the measured k(s), was found to be under ohmic control, not under the kinetic control of an electron-transfer reaction, suggesting that ks for FAD on CNTs is faster than the measured value of 7.6 s(-1).