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Diamond Electrodes for High Sensitivity Mercury Detection in the Aquatic Environment: Influence of Surface Preparation and Gold Nanoparticle Activity
Author(s) -
McLaughlin Maeve H. S.,
PakpourTabrizi Alexander C.,
Jackman Richard B.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
electroanalysis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.574
H-Index - 128
eISSN - 1521-4109
pISSN - 1040-0397
DOI - 10.1002/elan.201900281
Subject(s) - mercury (programming language) , electrode , detection limit , diamond , materials science , colloidal gold , nanoparticle , electrochemistry , nanotechnology , analytical chemistry (journal) , metallurgy , chemistry , chromatography , computer science , programming language
This work compares polished and unpolished boron doped diamond (BDD) electrodes decorated with two sizes of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) for use as robust mercury sensors in aquatic environments. The size of the catalytically active AuNPs on the electrode surfaces was demonstrated to have a less significant effect on the sensitivity for mercury detection than the surface preparation of the BDD. The lowest limits of detection were achieved with the polished BDD electrodes, which both detected mercury at a concentration of 1 pM, six orders of magnitude greater sensitivity than the lowest detection limit of 5 μM achieved with an unpolished BDD electrode, and high in comparison with other reported electrode systems.