I am solution depositing gold nanoparticle in substrate. Therefore the amount of gold nanoparticle that is deposited is less than I put on the surface. How can you determine the mass of gold in the electrode?
For a crude estimate you can do just nanoparticles counting: take AFM or SEM image of some relevant part of electrode's surface, measure the mean nanoparticle dimensions and their surface density; an estimate of overal mass deposited will be a product of the particles volume found over unit surface area, density of gold and total area of the activated surface of the electrode.
If you find a way to have your electrode atop quartz crystal, the QCM would give much more precise value.
Dusan Hemzal Thank you for your answer. These are very good suggestions. However, problem with AFM or SEM is, we have to assume that there is no gold NP on top of each other, In my case, the electrode have porous structure of gold and hence it will not show all the Au NP in the SEM.
For QCM, can you measure less than micro gram? I am expecting the mass to be less than 0.5 micro gram
If you suspect just multilayer coating, you may consider AFM nanoshaving. However, in case of porous substrate one usually has the only option to break the sample and use SEM to look on the crack from side to obtain the depth profile.
Concerning QCM, it is very sensitive, the detection range is in ng/mm2.
- Badges
- Science topic