The Analysis of Prussian Blue Bonding on Electrochemically Functionalized Carbon Nanotubes

Abstract

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been deposited by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) onto a nickel catalyst that had been electroplated onto a metal base electrode. The CNTs were characterized by Cyclic Voltammetry (CV) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). Prussian Blue (PB) was electrochemically deposited onto the CNT electrode from a solution of K3Fe(CN)6 by repeated cycling between -0.1 V and 0.8 V verses an Ag/AgCl reference. The ferricyanide redox couple occurs approximately at 0.25V-0.5 V while the deposition of PB was seen as a growing redox couple approximately at 0.65V-1.0 V. This suggests that utilizing CV is a viable method to functionalize CNT electrodes with PB. However, the exact structure and location of the PB bonding is unknown and was the focus of this study. SEM was utilized to image the electrode surface after each step of the functionalization process in order to study PB bonding onto the CNT electrode.