Charge Transfer Property of Self-Assembled Viologen Derivative by Electrochemical Quartz Crystal Microbalance Response

Abstract

Viologen modified electrodes have been extensively investigated with quartz crystal microbalance (QCM), which has been known as a nano-gram order mass detector, because of their highly reversible electrochemical properties, especially the first reduction-oxidation cycle of V2+ <--> V*+. The purpose of this work was to study the charge transfer characteristics of self-assembled monolayer (SAM) by changing electrolyte solutions where the cations and anions are different. The redox peak currents were nearly equal charges during redox processes and showed an excellent linear interrelation between the scan rates and second redox peak currents. The charge transfer of self-assembled viologen monolayer was determined by the mass change during the cyclic voltammetry (CV). The total frequency change was about 17.8 Hz, 19.6 Hz, 9.5 Hz, and 8.4 Hz. From this data, we could know the transferred mass was about 19.0 ng, 20.9 ng, 10.2 ng, and 9.0 ng. Finally, the electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance (EQCM) has been employed to monitor the electrochemically induced adsorption of self-assembled monolayer.