Atomic Gold Modified Polyaniline toward Electrochemical Gas Sensors

摘要

In recent years, polyaniline (PANI) has attracted considerable interests due to its high stability and flexibility for modifications, which are advantageous toward gas sensor applications.The modification of PANI substrate with atomic level gold clusters has been realized through a lucid electrochemical process. Depending on the number of gold atoms in a gold cluster, the electrocatalyticbehavioris expected to be different. For alcohol oxidation reactions, the modified Au/PANI electrode shows improved catalytic activity compared with an as-prepared non-modified PANI electrode, and the efficiency is betterwhencompared with a bulk gold electrode. Furthermore, by controlling the numbers of the atomic gold deposition cycle, PANI modified with different numbers of gold atoms in the gold cluster shows apparent cyclic voltammetry current response patterns of the oxidation of n-propanol and i-propanol.The modified Au/PANI electrode also shows improved catalytic ability when a higher scan rate of 100 mV s-1is applied. This reveals the abilityto be used inan array of electrochemical sensor for gas sensing.