Electrocatalytic activity of bimetallic Au-Pd nanoparticles in the presence of cobalt tetraaminophthalocyanine

Audacity Maringa; Philani Mashazi; Tebello Nyokong

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2014.10.056

Electrocatalytic activity of bimetallic Au-Pd nanoparticles in the presence of cobalt tetraaminophthalocyanine

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2015 Feb 15:440:151-61. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2014.10.056. Epub 2014 Nov 4.

Authors

Audacity Maringa¹, Philani Mashazi¹, Tebello Nyokong²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, Rhodes University, Grahamstown 6140, South Africa.
² Department of Chemistry, Rhodes University, Grahamstown 6140, South Africa. Electronic address: t.nyokong@ru.ac.za.

PMID: 25460701
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2014.10.056

Abstract

Au and Pd nanoparticles were individually or together electrodeposited on top of polymerized cobalt tetraaminophthalocyanine (poly-CoTAPc). When Pd and Au nanoparticles are co-deposited together, the electrode is denoted as Au-Pd (co-deposited)/poly-CoTAPc-GCE. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) was used to show the successful deposition of AuNPs, PdNPs and Au-Pd (co-deposited). The scanning electrochemical microscopy showed that Au-Pd (co-deposited)/poly-CoTAPc-GCE (with current range of 9.5-13.5 μA) was more conducting than Au-Pd (co-deposited)-GCE (with current range of 8-12 μA). Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) showed that there was less resistance to charge transfer for Au-Pd (co-deposited)/poly-CoTAPc-GCE compared to the rest of the electrodes. Au-Pd (co-deposited)/poly-CoTAPc-GCE showed the best activity for the electrooxidation of hydrazine in terms of limit of detection (0.5 μM), hence shows promise as an electrocatalyst for electrooxidation of hydrazine.

Keywords: Cobalt tetraaminophthalocyanine; Electrocatalysis; Gold–palladium nanoparticles; Hydrazine.