Template-assisted evaporation deposition of Au nanoparticles for fabrication of hierarchical porous Au film modified electrodes and their salt concentration-dependent capacitive current

In this study, we report facile fabrication of three dimensionally hierarchical porous Au film modified electrodes by solvent evaporation deposition of Au nanoparticles (NPs) on a ZnO nanorods (NRs) template followed by template removal. The as-prepared hierarchical porous Au film modified electrodes were found to possess the hierarchical pore architectures with large macropores created by the ZnO NRs template and small micropores originated from evaporation deposition of AuNPs. The utilization of the small micropores within the hierarchical porous Au architectures could be altered by salt concentrations, leading to the salt concentration-dependent interfacial capacitances. Such fundamental investigation on the electrochemical properties of the as-prepared hierarchical porous Au film modified electrodes is of particular importance for their potential applications in catalysis and sensing. Sensing applications are currently under development.