Electroassisted click chemistry immobilisation of gold nanoparticles on a solid substrate

•Covalent modification of GCE with AuNPs via electroassisted click reaction•Electrochemically controlled Cu(I) catalyst generation•Controlled surface coverage by varying the deposition time

In this paper a new electrochemical approach for covalent immobilisation of nanoparticles on a solid surface is described. Terminal alkyne modified gold nanoparticles have been deposited on an azide-functionalised glassy carbon surface by electrochemical generation of the Cu(I) catalyst for the Huisgen “click” reaction. The electrochemical catalyst generation offers good control over the process time and the influence of the process time on the surface coverage and the aggregation factor have been investigated. The efficiency of the electroassisted click-chemistry deposition was compared to standard chemical clicking.

Graphical abstractFigure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide