Nanoparticles of all sizes and compositions have been used for a variety of biological, medicinal, and technological applications. Small (<10 nm) metal oxide nanoparticles synthesized by a high temperature, non-aqueous route provide excellent reproducibility and size dispersion but leave the nanoparticles capped in a fatty surfactant. In an effort to better understand nanoparticle surface chemistry, these surfactants have been replaced with silanes and phosphates then functionalized with a redox tag. This redox tag for allows quantitative analysis via many electrochemical methods to determine the extent of surface modification. This was originally shown with 6 nm indium tin oxide nanoparticles (ITO) covalently modified with aminosilanes and reacted with a ferrocenyl chloride to provide our redox tag. We then began modifying the surface of 2 nm zirconium oxid. These nanoparticles were modified using a phosphate azide to undergo a �click� reaction with ethynylferrocene to provide the redox tag. Additional work has also shown that magnetite (Fe3O4) nanoparticles modified with citric acid undergoes an electrochemical exchange between Fe2+ and Fe3+. These nanoparticles maintain some of their magnetism which can be used to alter the currents in electrochemical experiments.

Electrochemistry of functionalized <10 nm metal oxide nanoparticles for the determination of surface modifiation

247th National Meeting (2014)

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