Electrodeposited silver nanodendrites electrode with strongly enhanced electrocatalytic activity

Abstract

Highly uniform dendritic silver nanostructures as a new electrode material, have been synthesized by electrodeposition on the glassy carbon (GC) electrode with assistance of polyethylene glycol 400 (PEG-400) as a soft template, to achieve a superior electrocatalyst with enhanced detection sensitivity in electroanalysis compared to conventional bulk Ag electrodes. The effects of the growth conditions such as concentrations of the reagents and applied potentials on the morphology and structure of as-prepared tree-like nanostructures have also been investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). In the silver nanodendrites (AgNDs), the diameter of the trunk is around 100–200 nm with length up to 10–40 μm, and the length of its branches can reach 10 μm. In addition, the electrocatalytic behavior of this modified electrode was exploited as a sensitive detection system for the reduction of RDX high explosive, hydrogen peroxide and hexacyanoferrate (HCF) by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) techniques. Also, the obtained results were compared to multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) and bulk silver electrodes. These studies show that the nanodendritic silvers significantly increase the electron-transfer rate of the electrochemical reactions by as much as 1–2 orders of magnitude.