Electrochemical kinetics and sensing of conjugated dienes in acetonitrile

• Main Author: Myedi, Noluthando
• Other Authors: Iwuoha, Emmanuel
• Language: en
• Published: University of the Western Cape 2017
• Subjects: Conjugated dienes electrochemistry; Electrode kinetics; Gasoline; Platinum electrodes
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11394/5424

>Magister Scientiae - MSc === This thesis focuses on the electroanalysis of some dienes (2-methyl-1.3-butadiene (MBD), tran-1.3-pentadiene (PD), 1.3-cyclohexadiene (CHD) and 3-cyclooctadiene (COD)) found in gasoline and the development of simple electrochemical diene sensors. The detection of dienes in fuels is important as they readily polymerise and form gum in fuel tanks. The electroctivity of the dienes was studied with glassy carbon electrode (GCE) and Pt electrode in tetrabutylammonium perchlorate (TBAP)/acetonitrile solution. Polyaniline-polystyrene sulfonic acid (PANi-PSSA) composite films were electro-deposited or drop-coated on GCE, with and without gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) and characterized by cyclic voltammetry (CV), high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis) spectroscopy. Both composite polymers were found to be of nanofibral structure, and the spherical gold nanoparticles were dispersed uniformly within the polymer. The dienes exhibited no redox peaks on GCE/PANi-PSSA and GCE/PANi-PSSA/AuNPs electrode systems from -1.0 V to +1.5 V, beyond which PANi would overoxidize and lose its electroactivity. Therefore, cyclic voltammetry and steady state amperometry of the four dienes (MBD, PD, CHD and COD) were studied with unmodified Pt and GCE electrodes. Subtractively normalised interfacial-fourier transform infra-red (SNIFTIR) spectroscopic studies of the dienes were performed with Pt electrode. SNIFTIR data showed that there was a definite electro-oxidation of 1.3-cyclohexadiene as electrode potential was changed from E = 770 mV to E = 1638 mV. Severe electrode fouling was observed when steady state amperometric detection of CHD, as a representative diene, was performed on Pt electrode. Randel-Sevčik analysis of the CVs of the dienes on Pt electrode gave diffusion coefficient (Dox) values of 10.65 cm²/s, 9.55 cm²/s, 3.20 cm²/s and 3.96 cm²/s for CHD, COD, PD, and MBD, respectively. The corresponding detection limits (3σn-1) were 0.0106 M, 0.0111 M, 0.0109 M, and 0.0107 M.