Electrodes redox active

Balasubramaniam E, Ramachandraiah G, Natarajan P, Bied-Charreton C, Devynck J, Bedioui F (1995) Electrochemical preparation of anthraquinone and zinc pmphyrin coated electrodes redox activity and film stability. J Mater Chem 5 625-629... 

A great variety of suitable polymers is accessible by polymerization of vinylic monomers, or by reaction of alcohols or amines with functionalized polymers such as chloromethylat polystyrene or methacryloylchloride. The functionality in the polymer may also a ligand which can bind transition metal complexes. Examples are poly-4-vinylpyridine and triphenylphosphine modified polymers. In all cases of reactively functionalized polymers, the loading with redox active species may also occur after film formation on the electrode surface but it was recognized that such a procedure may lead to inhomogeneous distribution of redox centers in the film... 

A qualitatively new approach to the surface pretreatment of solid electrodes is their chemical modification, which means a controlled attachment of suitable redox-active molecules to the electrode surface. The anchored surface molecules act as charge mediators between the elctrode and a substance in the electrolyte. A great effort in this respect was triggered in 1975 when Miller et al. attached the optically active methylester of phenylalanine by covalent bonding to a carbon electrode via the surface oxygen functionalities (cf. Fig. 5.27). Thus prepared, so-called chiral electrode showed stereospecific reduction of 4-acetylpyridine and ethylph-enylglyoxylate (but the product actually contained only a slight excess of one enantiomer). 

In the area of ion sensing, cation recognition by electrodes containing functionalized redox-active polymers has been an area of considerable interest. Fabre and co-workers have reported the development of a boronate-functionalized polypyrrole as a fluoride anion-responsive electroactive polymer film. The electropolymerizable polypyrrole precursor (11) (Fig. 11) was synthesized by the hydroboration reaction of l-(phenylsulfonyl)-3-vinylpyrrole with diisopinocampheylborane followed by treatment with pinacol and the deprotection of the pyrrole ring.33 The same methodology was utilized for the production of several electropolymerizable aromatic compounds (of pyrrole (12) (Fig. 11), thiophene (13 and 14) (Fig. 11), and aniline) bearing boronic acid and boronate substituents as precursors of fluoride- and/or chloride-responsive conjugated polymer.34... 

That volume bounded by the distance away from the electrode over which a redox-active species can diffuse to the electrode surface, within the timescale of the experiment being undertaken. From considerations of random walk in one dimension it can be shown that the distance / which a species moves in a time / is given by ... 

In some instances, the design of an amperometric immunosensor may be such that the enzyme is located some distance away from the electrode surface, or the presence of interfering substances in biological samples may require using an alternative electron transfer pathway. This usually involves a redox-active species with a small molecular... 

The first reports on direct electrochemistry of a redox active protein were published in 1977 by Hill [49] and Kuwana [50], They independently reported that cytochrome c (cyt c) exhibited virtually reversible electrochemistry on gold and tin doped indium oxide (ITO) electrodes as revealed by cyclic voltammetry, respectively. Unlike using specific promoters to realize direct electrochemistry of protein in the earlier studies, recently a novel approach that only employed specific modifications of the electrode surface without promoters was developed. From then on, achieving reversible, direct electron transfer between redox proteins and electrodes without using any mediators and promoters had made great accomplishments. 

Second, in designing new molecule-based electronic devices, one of the major goals is the precise control of the current flowing between the terminals. Electrochemical molecular junctions allow for control of the potentials of the electrodes with respect to the redox potential of incorporated redox-active molecules with well-defined, accessible, tunable energy states. These junctions represent unique systems able to predict precisely at which applied potential the current flow will take off. Even though the presence of a liquid electrolyte represents a detriment towards possible applications, they provide the concepts for designing molecular devices that mimic electronic functions and control electrical responses. 

A way to circumvent the first problem is to ensure that all of the active material is present at the electrode surface. That is, employ a chemically modified electrode where a precursor to the active electrocatalyst is incorporated. The field of chemically modified electrodes Q) is approaching a more mature state and there are now numerous methodologies for the incorporation of materials that exhibit electrocatalytic activity. Furthermore, some of these synthetic procedures allow for the precise control of the coverage so that electrodes modified with a few monolayers of redox active material can be reproducibly prepared. Q)... 

However, because of the mostly very slow electron transfer rate between the redox active protein and the anode, mediators have to be introduced to shuttle the electrons between the enzyme and the electrode effectively (indirect electrochemical procedure). As published in many papers, the direct electron transfer between the protein and an electrode can be accelerated by the application of promoters which are adsorbed at the electrode surface [27], However, this type of electrode modification, which is quite useful for analytical studies of the enzymes or for sensor applications is in most cases not stable and effective enough for long-term synthetic application. Therefore, soluble redox mediators such as ferrocene derivatives, quinoid compounds or other transition metal complexes are more appropriate for this purpose. 

Several approaches have been undertaken to construct redox active polymermodified electrodes containing such rhodium complexes as mediators. Beley [70] and Cosnier [71] used the electropolymerization of pyrrole-linked rhodium complexes for their fixation at the electrode surface. An effective system for the formation of 1,4-NADH from NAD+ applied a poly-Rh(terpy-py)2 + (terpy = terpyridine py = pyrrole) modified reticulated vitreous carbon electrode [70]. In the presence of liver alcohol dehydrogenase as production enzyme, cyclohexanone was transformed to cyclohexanol with a turnover number of 113 in 31 h. However, the current efficiency was rather small. The films which are obtained by electropolymerization of the pyrrole-linked rhodium complexes do not swell. Therefore, the reaction between the substrate, for example NAD+, and the reduced redox catalyst mostly takes place at the film/solution interface. To obtain a water-swellable film, which allows the easy penetration of the substrate into the film and thus renders the reaction layer larger, we used a different approach. Water-soluble copolymers of substituted vinylbipyridine rhodium complexes with N-vinylpyrrolidone, like 11 and 12, were synthesized chemically and then fixed to the surface of a graphite electrode by /-irradiation. The polymer films obtained swell very well in aqueous... 

Possible Ways to Move a Species from the Bulk of the Solution to the Electrode Surface. There are three physical mechanisms by which a redox-active species can move from the mass of the solution to the electrode surface. 

Linear Diffusion at a Planar Electrode. Commonly, in order to deduce the mathematical relationships that govern the diffusion of an electroactive species towards the electrode, one considers an electron transfer process taking place at a planar electrode, in an unstirred solution, so to make active only the diffusive motion of the redox-active species in a direction perpendicular to the electrode surface, Figure 18. 

The investigation on the use of molecules suitable for modifying the electrode surface so as to favour electron transfers with proteins (so-called promoters, which are non-redox active molecules and therefore unable to act as redox mediators) has determined that they must be bifunctional molecules X—V /—Y, in which X is a group able to... 

As can be seen, the increase in separation between the electrode surface and the redox-active site operated by the variable-in-length carbon chain from (CH2)3 to (CH2)n makes the process change from electrochemically reversible to irreversible. In fact, in agreement with the (simplified) Marcus equation, ket = 1013/e, the rate of the electron transfer is considerably reduced with the distance d. 

More recent approaches to the effects of the ligands on the redox activity of metal complexes are based upon the assumption that the electrode potential of a redox change involving a metal complex is determined by the additivity of the electronic contribution of all the ligands linked to the metal centre, or to the overall balance between the c-donor and the 7r-acceptor capability of each ligand.3 In particular two ligand electrochemical parameters have gained popularity ... 

The current through the electrode is proportional to the flux of redox-active material to the surface, which, in turn is related to the concentrations c of various species near the interface. Thus, an equivalent description is based on the dependence of c on space x and t. Often a single space-coordinate suffices. More complex systems (e.g. ultramicroelectrodes) may require up to three space-coordinates. 

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