Electrocatalytic Reduction of Hydrogen Peroxide by Pd−Ag Nanoparticles Based on the Collisional Approach

Abstract

AbstractParticles collision onto a surface or an interface is a novel electrochemical approach, which can be used to investigate the behavior of single entities. Benefiting from advantages including single particle/single event resolution, label‐free detection and high sensitivity, this technique has been widely employed in the study of electrocatalytic amplification of detection signal by nanoparticles. Herein, we report the investigation of the collisional electrocatalytic behaviors of novel Pd−Ag hyperbranched nanoparticles through the observation of catalysis of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) oxidation. The newly prepared Pd−Ag hyperbranched nanoparticles have been characterized by cyclic voltammetry and surface techniques. They can obviously reduce the overpotential of the reduction of H2O2 and show the high electrocatalytic activity. When the nanoparticles collide onto the electrode via the Brownian random motion, electrocatalytic reaction occurs and results in significant current increases, which could provide information about nanoparticles and electrochemical reactions. Furthermore, concentration and potential dependence are also investigated in detail, which confirms the reliability and universality of this methodology as an ultra‐sensitive probe. Based on these results, it is clearly shown that such platform is promising in further applications for biosensing and single nanoparticle analysis.