The influence of the shape of Au nanoparticles on the catalytic current of fructose dehydrogenase

Graphite electrodes were modified with triangular (AuNTrs) or spherical (AuNPs) nanoparticles and further modified with fructose dehydrogenase (FDH). The present study reports the effect of the shape of these nanoparticles (NPs) on the catalytic current of immobilized FDH pointing out the different contributions on the mass transfer–limited and kinetically limited currents. The influence of the shape of the NPs on the mass transfer–limited and the kinetically limited current has been proved by using two different methods: a rotating disk electrode (RDE) and an electrode mounted in a wall jet flow-through electrochemical cell attached to a flow system. The advantages of using the wall jet flow system compared with the RDE system for kinetic investigations are as follows: no need to account for substrate consumption, especially in the case of desorption of enzyme, and studies of product-inhibited enzymes. The comparison reveals that virtually identical results can be obtained using either of the two techniques. The heterogeneous electron transfer (ET) rate constants ( k S ) were found to be 3.8 ± 0.3 s −1 and 0.9 ± 0.1 s −1 , for triangular and spherical NPs, respectively. The improvement observed for the electrode modified with AuNTrs suggests a more effective enzyme-NP interaction, which can allocate a higher number of enzyme molecules on the electrode surface. Graphical abstract The shape of gold nanoparticles has a crucial effect on the catalytic current related to the oxidation of D -(-)-fructose to 5-keto- D -(-)-fructose occurring at the FDH-modified electrode surface. In particular, AuNTrs have a higher effect compared with the spherical one.