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The University of Southampton
Chemistry

Research project: High-Throughput Electrochemistry

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A new approach to the rapid development of modified carbon electrodes for biosensor applications.

In this project, we apply the principles of combinatorial chemistry and solid-phase synthesis to the synthesis of libraries of electrochemical mediators covalently attached to carbon surfaces for biosensor applications, in particular for NADH oxidation.

The basic advantage of chemical modification of the electrode surface is that it allows molecular design of the electrode/electrolyte interface and, as a consequence, molecular control over the kinetics of the electron transfer at the electrode surface. At the modified electrode surface, immobilised redox active species act as catalysts for the oxidation/reduction reaction of solution species. In this case, the oxidation/reduction of the solution species occurs by chemical reaction with the redox mediator at the electrode surface. The redox mediator is then regenerated by electrochemical oxidation/reduction at the electrode surface.

The design of modified electrodes consists of introducing first a surface attachment which will then allow further synthetic modification by various organic redox centres.

We have developed a novel approach for the covalent functionalisation of glassy carbon (GC) surface by organic redox centres in two key steps: electrochemical immobilisation of a Boc-protected linker followed by attachment of a redox centre in solid-phase conditions. These modified carbon surfaces were fully characterised by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and X ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS).

According to this methodology, we have prepared a mini-library of mediators covalently attached to glassy carbon electrodes. These electrodes were screened by cyclic voltammetry for NADH oxidation.

Work is currently in progress for the design of high-throughput methodology of synthesis and screening of libraries of new mediators.

J.-M. Chrétien, M. A. Ghanem, P. N. Bartlett, J. D. Kilburn, “Covalent Tethering of Organic Functionality to the Surface of Glassy Carbon Electrodes by using Electrochemical and Solid-Phase Synthesis Methodologies” Chem. Eur. J. 2008 , 14, 2548-2556.

Related research groups

Electrochemistry
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