Redoxless Electrochemical Capacitance Spectroscopy for Investigating Surfactant Adsorption on Screen-Printed Carbon Electrodes

Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) is a sensitive analytical method for surface and bulk properties. Classical EIS and derived electrochemical capacitance spectroscopy (ECS) with a redox couple are label-free approaches for biosensor development, but doubts arise regarding interpretability when a redox couple is employed (redox EIS) due to interactions between electroactive probes and interfacial charges or forced potential. Here, we demonstrated redoxless ECS for directly determining surfactant adsorption on screen-printed carbon electrodes (SPCEs), validated through a simulation of equivalent circuits and the electrochemistry of electronic dummy cells. Redoxless ECS provides excellent capacitance plot loci for quantifying the interfacial permittivity of di-electric layers on electrode surfaces. Redoxless ECS was compared with redox EIS/ECS, revealing a favorable discrimination of interfacial capacitances under both low and high SDS coverage on SPCEs and demonstrating potential for probeless (reagentless) sensing. Furthermore, the proposed method was applied in an electrolyte without a redox couple and bare electrodes, obtaining a high performance for the adsorption of surfactants Tween-20, Triton-X100, sodium dodecyl sulfate, and tetrapropylammonium bromide. This approach offers a simple and straightforward means for a semi-quantitative evaluation of small molecule interactions with electrode surfaces. Our proposed approach may serve as a starting point for future probeless (reagentless) and label-free biosensors based on electrochemistry, eliminating disturbance with surface charge properties and minimizing forced potential bias by avoiding redox couples. An unambiguous and quantitative determination of physicochemical properties of biochemically recognizable layers will be relevant for biosensor development.

Automated summary

Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) is a sensitive analytical method for surface and bulk properties. Here, we demonstrated redoxless ECS for directly determining surfactant adsorption on screen-printed carbon electrodes (SPCEs), providing excellent capacitance plot loci for quantifying the interfacial permittivity of dielectric layers on electrode surfaces. Our proposed approach may serve as a starting point for future probeless and label-free biosensors based on electrochemistry, eliminating disturbance with surface charge properties and minimizing forced potential bias by avoiding redox couples.