Study of the solvent effect on the quality of dodecanethiol self-assembled monolayers on polycrystalline gold

This paper reports the study of the solvent (tetrachloromethane, toluene, tetrahydrofuran, acetone, N,N-dimethylformamide, acetonitrile, ethanol, ethanol–water mixture (1:1, v:v) and neat dodecanethiol liquid) effect on the quality of self-assembled monolayers of dodecanethiol (C12SH-SAMs) on polycrystalline gold. The quality of the C12SH-SAMs was investigated by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), and the results show that highly dense and well-ordered C12SH-SAMs can be prepared from ethanol–water mixture and neat dodecanethiol liquid. The property parameters of the solvents, such as polarity, solubility parameter, molecular diameter, octanol–water partition coefficients and viscosity were correlated with their ability to influence the quality of the C12SH-SAMs.