Electrochemical studies of ferrocene/ferrocenium redox couple on nitrogen-doped multi-walled carbon nanotubes in organic solvents
摘要
In present work, the oxidation of ferrocene (FeCp2) to ferrocenium cation (FeCp2+) was investigated on electrode consisting of nitrogen-doped multi-walled carbon nanotubes (N-MWCNTs) in acetone (ACE), acetonitrile (ACN), dichloromethane (DCM), and dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) in presence of n-tetrabutylammonium hexafluorophosphate (NBu4PF6) by means of cyclic voltammetry and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. For comparison reasons studies of FeCp2+/0 on glassy carbon (GC) were carried out. Parameters such as, half-wave potentials (E1/2), diffusion coefficients (D), heterogeneous electron-transfer rate constants (ks), and charge-transfer resistances (Rct) of FeCp2+/0 were determined. The electron-transfer process was found to be reversible and diffusion controlled on both electrodes in all investigated solvents. The E1/2 values tend to shift towards less positive potentials with the increase of dipole moment and dielectric constant of solvent. Furthermore, both D and ks values tend to decrease with the progressively increase of viscosity of solvent. In addition, the ks values vary inversely with the Rct parameters indicating that the charge-transfer kinetics is strongly affected by the impedance behavior of electrode. Among the electrodes probed, the N-MWCNTs-based film provides faster electrochemical process since it affords insignificant barrier for interfacial electron transfer. The lower limit of detection (LOD) estimated for N-MWCNTs (0.6 × 10–6–3.6 × 10–6 mol∙L−1) and GC (1.8 × 10–6–6.2 × 10–6 mol∙L−1) towards FeCp2+/0 was found to be strongly tied to the diffusion coefficient of redox system in different solvents.