Transduction mechanism of carbon nanotubes in solid-contact ion-selective electrodes

Porous carbon materials and carbon nanotubes were recently used as solid contacts in ion-selective electrodes (ISE), and the signal transduction mechanism of these carbon-based materials is therefore of great interest. In this work the ion-to-electron transduction mechanism of carbon nanotubes is studied by using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and cyclic voltammetry (CV). Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) are deposited on glassy carbon (GC) disk electrodes by repetitive spraying, resulting in SWCNT layers with thicknesses of 10, 35, and 50 mum. The impedance spectra of these GC/SWCNT electrodes in contact with aqueous electrolyte solution show a very small resistance and a large bulk capacitance that is related to a large effective double layer at the SWCNT/electrolyte interface. Interestingly, the impedance response of GC/SWCNT is very similar to that of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) film electrodes studied earlier under the same experimental conditions. The same equivalent circuit is valid for both types of materials. The reason is that both materials can be described schematically as an asymmetric capacitor where one side is formed by electronic charge (electrons/holes) in the SWCNT wall or along the conjugated polymer chain of PEDOT and the other side is formed by ions (anions/cations) in the solution (or in the ion-selective membrane when used as a solid contact in ISE).