Chemically immobilised carbon nanotubes on silicon: Stable surfaces for aqueous electrochemistry

Building Tailored Interfaces through Covalent Coupling Reactions at Layers Grafted from Aryldiazonium Salts

Aryldiazonium ions are widely used reagents for surface modification. Attractive aspects of their use include wide substrate compatibility (ranging from plastics to carbons to metals and metal oxides), formation of stable covalent bonding to the substrate, simplicity of modification methods that are compatible with organic and aqueous solvents, and the commercial availability of many aniline precursors with a straightforward conversion to the active reagent. Importantly, the strong bonding of the modifying layer to the surface makes the method ideally suited to further on-surface (postfunctionalization) chemistry. After an initial grafting from a suitable aryldiazonium ion to give an anchor layer, a target species can be coupled to the layer, hugely expanding the range of species that can be immobilized. This strategy has been widely employed to prepare materials for numerous applications including chemical sensors, biosensors, catalysis, optoelectronics, composite materials, and energy conversion and storage. In this Review our goal is first to summarize how a target species with a particular functional group may be covalently coupled to an appropriate anchor layer. We then review applications of the resulting materials.

A comparative study of different protein immobilization methods for the construction of an efficient nano-structured lactate oxidase-SWCNT-biosensor

We constructed lactate biosensors by immobilization of lactate oxidase (LOx) onto a single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) electrode. The first step of the sensor construction was the immobilization of oxidized SWCNT onto a platinum electrode modified with 4-aminothiophenol (4-ATP). Two enzyme immobilization methods were used to construct the biosensors, i.e., covalent immobilization using 1-ethyl-3-(3-dimethylaminopropyl) carbodiimide hydrochloride (EDC) and physical adsorption. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) experiments confirmed the immobilization of SWCNT during the biosensor construction and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) experiments confirmed covalent immobilization of LOx onto the SWCNT in the first method. The biosensor based on covalent enzyme immobilization showed a sensitivity of 5.8 μA/mM, a linearity up to 0.12 mM of L-lactate, and a detection limit of 4.0 μM. The biosensor based on protein adsorption displayed a sensitivity of 9.4 μA/mM, retaining linearity up to 0.18 mM of L-lactate with a detection limit of 3.0 μM. The difference in the biosensor response can be attributed to protein conformational or dynamical changes during covalent immobilization. The stability of the biosensors was tested at different temperatures and after different storage periods. The thermostability of the biosensors after incubation at 60 °C demonstrated that the biosensor with covalently immobilized LOx retained a higher response compared with the adsorbed protein. Long-term stability experiments show a better residual activity of 40% for the covalently immobilized protein compared to 20% of residual activity for the adsorbed protein after 25 d storage. Covalent protein immobilization was superior compared to adsorption in preserving biosensor functionality over extended time period.

Formation of thick aminophenyl films from aminobenzenediazonium ion in the absence of a reduction source

Aminophenyl films, electrografted to conducting substrates from a solution of the corresponding diazonium ion, are a useful platform for building up functional surfaces. In our hands, reproducible preparation of aminophenyl films via electrografting is difficult, suggesting competing grafting pathways. To investigate the grafting process without the possibility of reduction of the diazonium ion by the substrate, we have used a spin-coated and cured SU-8 substrate that is nonconducting and very smooth (rms surface roughness 0.43 nm). After in situ formation of the aminobenzenediazonium ion (50 mM) in acidic solution, the substrate was added to the solution in the presence and absence of reducing agents (hypophosphorous acid and iron powder). At short reaction times, the films prepared with and without reducing agent have the same thickness and composition (as revealed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy). However, in the presence of a reducing agent, films reach a limiting thickness of 7-8 nm after 10 min, whereas, in the absence of a reducing agent, strong film growth continues, giving a film thickness of 14 nm after 120 min. This behavior contrasts with that of other diazonium ions which, in the absence of an applied potential, a reducing agent, or a reducing substrate, give only very thin films after long reaction times.