Dear all, does anybody have an experience of carbon ink preparation which consists of hydrophobic nanoparticles dispersed into water-IPA mixture and a small amount of Nafion solution? I tried different concentrations of a Nafion but all the time after applying some ink on the GC surface they agglomerate all around with coffee ring formation. Do you have any ideas how to cover a surface homogeneously for adequate electrochemical characterization?
Thank you in advance!
Check out these articles - http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/am300423p
http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2015/SM/C5SM01196E
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v476/n7360/full/nature10344.html
How do you coat the ink on the surface? spin coat? If you increase the evaporation rate you can minimize the coffee ring effect-.say, try increasing the substrate temperature.
Try this...
First buy a domestic use IR lamp. Then put your clean GC electrode under the IR lamp for couple of minutes. Warning: After IR treatment the electrode will be hot and be careful in handling. Now drop your solution on the electrode surface while the electrode is in hot condition. This will reduce the coffee ring effect. After casting the solution, again treat under IR lamp for few minutes. This will really help to bind your hydrophobic particles strongly and more homogeneously. You can also try without the binder. IR lamp is capable of improving the binding of certain material on GC surface even without binder! Obviously, the modified electrode without binder will have less resistance and show more active surface area!!! All the best.
Note: Please avoid using IR lamp treatment for heat sensitive, IR sensitive and also biological materials such as proteins, enzymes etc.
Hope this helps you.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Engineering
- Materials Engineering
- Coating