Effects of Film Morphology and Surface Chemistry on the Direct Electrochemistry of Cytochrome c at Boron-Doped Diamond Electrodes

The effects of film morphology and surface termination on the direct electron transfer of horse heart cytochrome c on boron-doped ultrananocrystalline (B-UNCD) and microcrystalline (B-MCD) diamond thin-film electrodes were investigated. Quasi-reversible, diffusion-controlled cyclic voltammetric responses were observed on oxygen-terminated (atomic O/C similar to 0.015), but not hydrogen-terminated (atomic O/C similar to 0.02) diamond thin films. The effect of the surface termination was the same for both the nanostructured B-UNCD film with sp(2)-bonded carbon atoms in the grain boundaries and the well faceted B-MCD film with micron-sized grains and largely devoid of sp(2) carbon. Stable cyclic voltammetric i-E curves were recorded with cycling for both oxygen-terminated films indicating the absence of protein denaturation and electrode fouling. The peak currents increased linearly with the square root of the scan rate and the protein concentration; both indicative of a reaction rate limited by semi-infinite linear diffusion of the protein. Similar heterogeneous electron-transfer rate constants were observed for oxygen-terminated B-UNCD (3.48 (+/- 1.25) x 10(-3) cm/s) and B-MCD films (2.38 (+/- 0.72) x 10(-3) cm/s). The results clearly reveal that the oxygen-terminated surface is more active for electron-transfer with this soluble redox protein than is the hydrogen-terminated surface. The film morphology does not influence the diffusion-controlled response of the redox protein. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.