Electrochemical transduction on self-assembled monolayers: are covalent links essential?

No more compromise: A facile route towards functionalized surfaces with stable monolayers

The results reported in this study clearly show that it is possible to easily control the formation of a functional monolayer by spontaneous reduction of an aryldiazonium salt on gold...

Real-time Voltammetric Anion Sensing Under Flow*

The development of real‐life applicable ion sensors, in particular those capable of repeat use and long‐term monitoring, remains a formidable challenge. Herein, we demonstrate, in a proof‐of‐concept, the real‐time voltammetric sensing of anions under continuous flow in a 3D‐printed microfluidic system. Electro‐active anion receptive halogen bonding (XB) and hydrogen bonding (HB) ferrocene‐isophthalamide‐(iodo)triazole films were employed as exemplary sensory interfaces. Upon exposure to anions, the cathodic perturbations of the ferrocene redox‐transducer are monitored by repeat square‐wave voltammetry (SWV) cycling and peak fitting of the voltammograms by a custom‐written MATLAB script. This enables the facile and automated data processing of thousands of SW scans and is associated with an over one order‐of‐magnitude improvement in limits of detection. In addition, this improved analysis enables tuning of the measurement parameters such that high temporal resolution can be achieved. More generally, this new flow methodology is extendable to a variety of other analytes, including cations, and presents an important step towards translation of voltammetric ion sensors from laboratory to real‐world applications.

Click Chemistry: A Versatile Method for Tuning the Composition of Mixed Organic Layers Obtained by Reduction of Diazonium Cations

Postfunctionalization of glassy carbon electrodes previously modified by reduction of 4-azidobenzenediazonium was exploited to conveniently synthesize controlled mixed organic layers. Huisgen 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition was used to anchor functional entities to azide platform. By this way, ((4-ethynylphenyl)carbamoyl)ferrocene (ϕ-Fc) was coimmobilized with a set of acetylene derivatives: 1-ethynyl-4-nitrobenzene (ϕ-NO₂), 4-ethynylaniline (ϕ-NH₂) or ethylnylbenzene (ϕ). The composition of the resulting organic layers was tuned by adjusting the acetylene derivatives ratio in the postfunctionalization binary solution. Electronic properties of the substituents beared by the aromatic rings were found to have a strong impact on the cycloaddition kinetics toward the confined azide moieties. From this study, rules to prepare finely tuned bifunctional organic layers can be anticipated.