Le Hien T Ngoc, Phan Le Minh Tu, Cho Sungbo
Department of Electronic Engineering, Gachon University, Seongnam-si 13120, Korea.
School of Medicine and Pharmacy, The University of Danang, Danang 550000, Vietnam.
Materials (Basel). 2022 Mar 17;15(6):2218. doi: 10.3390/ma15062218.
The self-assembled monolayer (SAM) is the most common organic assembly utilized for the formation of the monolayers of alkane-thiolates on gold electrode, resulting in a wide range of applications for the modified SAM on gold in various research areas. This study examined the desorption of a SAM that was developed on the gold surface of an interdigitated chain-shaped electrode (the ICE, a unique electrode design, was fabricated by our group) with the goal of determining the most efficient strategy of SAM removal for the ICE to be re-used. A simple and proficient solution-based cleaning procedure was applied for the removal of a SAM on the gold surface of the ICE by using a sodium borohydride solution within short-term treatment, resulting in efficiency for the recovery of the originally electrochemical characteristic of ICE of 90.3%. The re-use of ICE after the removal process was confirmed by the successful re-deposition of a SAM onto the electrode surface, resulting in the high efficiency percentage of 90.1% for the reusability of ICE with the SAM modification. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and cyclic voltammetry (CV) were used as tools to investigate the changes in the electrode interface at each stage of the SAM removal and the electrode recycling. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy were employed, being powerful spectrum techniques, for the characterization of the bonding structure and chemical state of the bare ICE and the modified ICE at each treatment step. Based on the comprehensive discussion of analytical chemistry from the obtained EIS and CV data in this study, we confirmed and proved the effectiveness of this promising method for the removal of a SAM from the ICE and the re-use of ICE in the field of material deposition, with the aims of saving money, improving experimental handling, and protecting the environment.
自组装单分子层（SAM）是用于在金电极上形成烷硫醇盐单分子层的最常见有机组装体，这使得修饰后的金表面SAM在各个研究领域有广泛应用。本研究考察了在叉指链状电极（ICE，一种独特的电极设计，由我们团队制造）金表面形成的SAM的解吸情况，目的是确定去除SAM以使ICE可重复使用的最有效策略。通过在短期处理中使用硼氢化钠溶液，应用了一种简单且高效的基于溶液的清洗程序来去除ICE金表面的SAM，ICE原始电化学特性的恢复效率达到90.3%。去除过程后ICE的重复使用通过将SAM成功重新沉积到电极表面得到证实，SAM修饰的ICE的可重复使用效率高达90.1%。电化学阻抗谱（EIS）和循环伏安法（CV）被用作工具来研究SAM去除和电极循环各阶段电极界面的变化。X射线光电子能谱和傅里叶变换红外光谱作为强大的光谱技术，用于表征每个处理步骤中裸ICE和修饰ICE的键合结构和化学状态。基于本研究中从获得的EIS和CV数据对分析化学的全面讨论，我们证实并证明了这种有前景的方法在从ICE去除SAM以及在材料沉积领域重复使用ICE方面的有效性，旨在节省资金、改善实验操作并保护环境。
