In Situ and Real Time Characterization of Spontaneous Grafting of Aryldiazonium Salts at Carbon Surfaces

Aryldiazonium cations are widely used to covalently functionalize carbon substrates that display a wide range of composition, from 100% sp2 such as graphite or graphene to 100% sp3 such as diamond and nanodiamond. In this work we investigated the effect that changes in carbon composition have on aryldiazonium adsorption rates and surface reaction mechanism. Quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) was used to investigate the rates of adsorption in situ and in real time at two amorphous carbon substrates, one with high sp2 content (a-C) and one with high sp3 content (a-C:H). A reversible Langmuir adsorption model was found to satisfactorily describe adsorption at a-C:H, yielding an adsorption rate coefficient ka = 3.1 M–1 s–1 and a free energy of adsorption ΔGa = −20.1 kJ mol–1. This model, on the other hand, could not be applied for the interpretation of adsorption curves at a-C. Using electrochemical methods and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), we found that adlayers formed at a-C:H and a-C surfaces diff...