Electron transport in clay-modified electrodes: study of electron transfer between electrochemically oxidized tris (2,2′-bipyridyl) iron cations and clay structural iron(II) sites

The cyclic voltammograms of tris (2,2′-bipyridyl) iron(II) ([Fe(bpy)3]2+) adsorbed in clay-modified electrodes made from a range of different smectites were recorded. In all cases, at low scan speed (1 mV/s), the initial anodic peak current was much larger than the initial cathodic peak current. Partial reduction of the clay structural iron further increased the initial anodic to cathodic current ratio, suggesting that the discrepancy between the charge transferred in the anodic and cathodic scans was due to a slow electron transfer between the clay structural Fe(II) and the oxidized bipyridyl cations. However, no clear quantitative relation was found between the measured FeO contents of the different clays and the observed excess anodic currents. In fact, of all the clays tested only one, montmorillonite SWy-1, contained enough Fe(II) for it to account for all of the excess anodic charge transferred in the initial scan.