Chemistry Commons^™

Electrochemistry Of Bubbles: Developing New Sensors, Promoting Gas Evolution Reactions, And Extraction Of Rare Earth Elements, Ruchiranga R. Ranaweera

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation presents new analytical, electrocatalysis, and separation strategies that utilize bubble behaviors in different electrochemical systems. The first part of this dissertation focuses on the method development for PFAS preconcentration and detection. First, we present the bubble-nucleation-based electrochemical method for the selective and sensitive detection of surfactants. Our method utilizes the high surface activity of surfactant analytes to affect the electrochemical bubble nucleation and then transduces the change in nucleation condition to an electrochemical signal for determining the surfactant concentration. Using this method, we demonstrate the quantitation of perfluorinated surfactants in water, a group of emerging environmental contaminants, with …

Development Of Single And Array Electro-Chemical Sensors For Real-Time Trace Metal Analysis In Aqueous Environmental Media, Yuanyuan Yang

Wayne State University Dissertations

Detection of trace metals has great importance in environmental and biological applications. While traditional electrochemical techniques have played critical roles in this field, their usefulness is limited by temporal resolution, Hg toxicity and stability concerns. Recently, we developed a method using fast-scan cyclic voltammetry (FSCV) at carbon-fiber microelectrodes (CFMs) to achieve rapid measurement of metal ions with high sensitivity, selectivity, and stability. Through optimizations this method showed strengths in real-time trace metal analysis. ‬‬‬‬‬‬

‪Analytical selectivity was improved via covalent functionalization on CFMs. We employed diazonium electrochemical reduction followed by click chemistry to create robust covalent attachments. We showcased its …