Effects of the gold nanoparticles including different thiol functional groups on the performances of glucose-oxidase-based glucose sensing devices

Thiol-based self-assembled anchor linked to glucose oxidase (GOx) and gold nanoparticle (GNP) cluster is suggested to enhance the performance of glucose biosensor. By the adoption of thiol-based anchors, the activity of biocatalyst consisting of GOx, GNP, polyethyleneimine (PEI) and carbon nanotube (CNT) is improved because they play a crucial role in preventing the leaching out of GOx. They also promote electron collection and transfer, and this is due to a strong hydrophobic interaction between the active site of GOx and the aromatic ring of anchor, while the effect is optimized with the use of thiophenol anchor due to its simple configuration. Based on that, it is quantified that by the adoption of thiophenol as anchor, the current density of flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD) redox reaction increases about 42%, electron transfer rate constant (ks) is 9.1±0.1 s−1 and the value is 26% higher than that of catalyst that does not use the anchor structure.