Tailoring copper (II) methacrylate-containing copolymers and its use as electrode modifier agent in electroanalytical applications.

This work focuses on the synthesis of a new class of copolymer materials consisting of traditional vinyl monomers (essentially, vinyl acetate, ethyl acrylate, and methyl methacrylate) and copper (II) methacrylate (Cu(II)MA) intended to be used as surface modification agents in electrochemical quantifications of organic and inorganic analytes. Voltammetry assays showed that when deposited on glassy-carbon electrode (GCE), Cu(II)MA-based copolymers are very promising materials to be applied in electrochemical determinations, exhibiting high analytical signal in the oxidation and reduction peaks during quantification of potassium hexacyanoferrate (III) in comparison to a bare GCE, contributing to increase the effective electrode area. When employed for the determination of ascorbic acid, PVAcCu(II)MA/GCE exhibited performance similar to that of the bare GCE. Polymers characterizations showed that glass transition temperature of the Cu(II)MA-based materials increased in approximately 10-20°C, as consequence of the copper present in molecular structure of the copolymer chains (bidentate bridging coordination mode). Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy measurements of Cu(II)MA monomer and Cu(II)MA-based copolymers showed strong characteristic peaks K&#945 and Kβ at 8.04 and 8.90 keV, respectively, with an average amount of copper of 99%. The performance of the Cu(II)MA-based copolymers modified electrodes is strongly dependent on the amount of copper into the copolymer chains and consequently on the monomers conversion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]