Studies on the effect of solvents on self-assembly of thioctic acid and Mercaptohexanol on gold

In this article we investigated the effect of solvents (CCl4, CH3CN, DMF, ethanol, ethanol–H2O and H2O) on self-assembly of Thioctic acid (TA) and Mercaptohexanol (MCH) on gold by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). Electrochemical characteristics of TA and MCH self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) formed in different solvents were evaluated by inspecting the ions permeability (interfacial capacitance C and phase angle Ф1 Hz) and electron transfer capability (current density difference Δi and charge transfer resistance Rct). Experimental results indicated that the ability of solvents availing the ordering of SAMs was: for TA, CCl4 > ethanol > CH3CN > ethanol–H2O > DMF; for MCH, H2O > ethanol–H2O ≈ CCl4 > ethanol ≈ CH3CN > DMF. Through relating the C, Ф1 Hz, Δi and Rct of SAMs (TA and MCH) with parameters of solvent (polarity ETN, solubility parameter δ and octanol/water partition coefficients logPow), it was found that solvents with bigger logPow (smaller ETN and δ) availed the ordering of TA-SAMs but the effect of solvents on MCH self-assembly was complex and MCH-SAMs formed in H2O (the biggest ETN, δ and the smallest logPow) and CCl4 (the smallest ETN, δ and the biggest logPow) were more ordered than in other solvents.