Nanostructuring a Gold Microelectrode through Electrochemical Alloying-Dealloying for Nitrite Detection

Nanostructuring a polycrystalline Au-disk microelectrode for highly increased catalytic activity and surface area has been successfully achieved through electrochemical alloying-dealloying in nonaqueous electrolyte of ZnCl2 in benzyl alcohol at 120 degrees C. Scanning-electron-microscope measurements show that the nanostructured gold microelectrode has honeycomb-like nanostructures characteristic of around 50 to 200 nm diameter pores and approximately 100 nm thickness walls. Voltammetric studies exhibit that the nanostructured microelectrode possesses a wide linear range of 2.0x10(-6) to 0.1 mol dm(-3) and a high sensitivity of 800 mA dm(3) mol(-1) cm(-2) for the nitrite detection. (C) 2012 The Electrochemical Society. All rights reserved.