Abstract
A facile strategy to prepare GO-based nanocomposites with both gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) and ferrocene (Fc) moieties was developed. The surface of GO was modified with PFcMAss homopolymer by surface-initiated atom transfer radical polymerization of a new methacrylate monomer of 2-((2-(methacryloyloxy)ethyl)disulfanyl)ethyl ferrocene-carboxylate (FcMAss), consisting of disulfide as an anchoring group for stabilizing AuNPs and Fc group as an additional functionality. AuNPs with an average diameter of about 4.1 nm were formed in situ on the surface of PFcMAss-decorated GO (GO-PFcMAss) via Brust-Schiffrin method to give GO-PFcMAss-AuNPs multifunctional nanocomposites bearing GO, AuNPs and Fc groups. The obtained nanocomposites were characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). Since disulfide-containing polymers, rather than the commonly used thiol-containing compounds, were employed as ligands to stabilize AuNPs, much more stabilizing groups were attached onto the surface of GO, and thus more AuNPs were able to be introduced onto the surface of GO. Besides, polymeric chains on the surface of GO endowed GO-PFcMAss-AuNPs nanocomposites with excellent colloidal stability, and the usage of a disulfide group provides possibility to efficiently incorporate additional functionalities by easily modifying structure of disulfide-based monomer.
Highlights
Graphene, a fascinating two-dimensional graphitic carbon system, has quickly sparked tremendous interests across many fields including biosensors, electrochemical energy storage and electronics due to its extraordinary properties of large surface area, good mechanical properties and extremely high electronic conductivity properties [1,2,3,4,5,6]
Since the noncovalent interactions can be weakened by temperature, salt, pH or some specific compounds, the limited stability of Graphene oxide (GO)/AuNPs composites would hinder the application of these composites
The obtained GO-PFcMAss-AuNPs nanocomposite was characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM)
Summary
A fascinating two-dimensional graphitic carbon system, has quickly sparked tremendous interests across many fields including biosensors, electrochemical energy storage and electronics due to its extraordinary properties of large surface area, good mechanical properties and extremely high electronic conductivity properties [1,2,3,4,5,6]. A large variety of functional moieties, including inorganic particles, polymers, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and so on, have been incorporated onto the surface of GO to improve inherent properties of GO or endow GO-based hybrid materials with new functionalities [11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23]. Ferrocene cannot form stable adsorption layers on electrodes so that enormous efforts have been performed to immobilize ferrocene and its derivatives on electrode As it is well known, various nanomaterials, such as AuNPs, carbon nanotubes and graphene, have been used as excellent carriers to enhance the sensitivity of sensors. The obtained GO-PFcMAss-AuNPs nanocomposite was characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM)
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