Fabrication of Highly Active Nanoneedle Gold Electrode Using Rose Petals for Electrochemical Detection of Arsenic(III)

Nanoscale fabrication of metal interface structures has been applied to various fields, owing to their conducive electrical and optical properties. Their successful application is typically attributed to their high activity, which originates from their significantly increased specific surface area resulting from the type of nanostructures. The high activity, such as fast electron transfer from nanostructures, increases the efficiency of the electrochemical reactions occurring at the metal interface and improves the detection sensitivity. In this study, highly active gold electrodes with a specific surface topography were fabricated directly from raw rose petals, which have a regular but complex structure. When the fabricated electrode was used as the working electrode of an electrochemical sensor, the sensitivity improved 100-fold in the measurement of arsenic(III), compared to the sensitivity achieved using a smooth gold film. It was demonstrated that the interface structure of the biomaterial could be easily adapted for the fabrication of thin metal surfaces with a complex structure. Thus, using various materials as substrates, it is possible to fabricate functional complex structures that exhibit unique electrochemical and optical properties owing to their large surface areas, interfacial structures, and irregular microstructures, thereby enabling the highly sensitive detection of heavy metals on metallic thin films.