Purpose
- To determine if coating the glassy carbon electrode with nanofibers blocked electron transfer.
Protocol
Electrochemical Analysis
- CH Instruments Electrochemical Analyzer was used.
- 5 mM hexaammineruthenium(III) chloride and 1M KCl solution was used in electrochemical cell.
- The glassy carbon electrode was cleaned with 0.3 and then 0.05 alumina slurry and then sonicated.
- The reference electrode, the platinum wire, and the GCE were attached to the instrument.
- The parameters were set at:
- Initial: 0.2
- High: 0.2
- Low: -0.4
- Initial Scan: Negative
- Scan Rate: 0.05
- Segments: 4
- Sensitivity 1x10^(-5)
- Sample Interval: 0.001
- Then the instrument was ran.
- This same procedure was with the addition of 20μL or 25μL of nanofibers which had been dropped onto the GCE and allowed to dry.
- The nanofibers had been centrifued at 1300rpm for 1 minute.
Data
- 1M KCl; 20μL Nanofibers; Test 3
Figure 1 dV=.096V dC=6.61*10-5A
- 1M KCl; 25μL Nanofibers; Test 1
Figure 2 dV=.083V dC=8.44*10-5A
- 1M KCl; 25μL Nanofibers; Test 2
Figure 3 dV=.079V dC=9.20*10-5A
Results
The fibers are too porous to completely block the current which prevents the complete blocking of the current. This is why there is no noticeable pattern in the dV and dC values for the different volumes.
The nanofiber drying method was inefficient and imprecise, so we decided to stay with the centrifugation method.
Notes
Hannah Harvey
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Project name
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