Alkanethiol reductive desorption from self-assembled monolayers on gold, platinum, and palladium substrates

The reductive desorption of n-alkanethiolate (RS-) self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) on gold, platinum, and palladium substrates was investigated. The kinetics of this process were too slow to measure directly in the case of RS-Pt and RS-Pd SAMs. Thus, the faradaic response of potassium ferricyanide after partial or complete desorption was determined and used to quantify the relative electrochemically accessible surface area. Both the type of underlying metal substrate and the chain length of the n-alkanethiol were varied. The relative alkanethiol binding affinity and effective kinetics of binding for each of the substrates were discussed in light of these observations.