Studies on Thiol Etching of Gold by Using QCM-D Sensor as the Sacrificial Probe

Chemphyschem. 2021 Nov 30. doi: 10.1002/cphc.202100790. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTThiol etching reaction of gold is still suffering from a lack of deep understandings on the reaction kinetics and mechanism. Herein, by using the sensor of quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) as the sacrificial probe, the etching reaction of gold has been studied in employing cysteamine (CS) as a typical thiol etchant. The etching reaction is verified as diffusion-controlled and shows a half-order reaction kinetics. It is demonstrated that intact thiol and amino on CS are both crucial for its etching ability to gold. Applied potentials can affect the electron transferring and hence can be used to regulate the etching of gold. Our results also reveal that only two carbon atoms of the spacer between thiol and amino on CS are very critical to the excellent etching ability. This work exhibits a new route to explore the thiol etching reaction of gold and well elucidates the reaction kinetics and mechanism.PMID:34850511 | DOI:10.1002/cphc.202100790
Source: Chemphyschem - Category: Chemistry Authors: Source Type: research
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