Au nanoparticles and polyaniline coated resin beads for simultaneous catalytic oxidation of glucose and colorimetric detection of the product

In this letter, we report the synthesis of Au nanoparticles (NPs) and polyaniline (PANI) on the same cation-exchange resin beads and demonstrate their use in catalyzing the oxidation of glucose to gluconic acid by Au NPs and simultaneously in detecting the formation of the acid by the color change of PANI. The synthesis was carried out by exchanging the cations of the resins with HAuCl4 and anilinuium chloride and then reducing the metal ions by NaBH4 to produce Au NPs followed by polymerization of aniline using H2O2. The green emeraldine salt form of PANI thus obtained was treated with NaOH to be converted to blue emeraldine base before use. The deposition of Au NPs was confirmed by a change in color of the bead, visible spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and scanning electron microscopic measurements. On the other hand, the presence of PANI was confirmed by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis) spectroscopy. The formation of gluconic acid from glucose was confirmed by FTIR spectroscopy. We could detect the presence of glucose of a minimum 1.0 mM concentration in water, using the present method. Our experimental observations demonstrate the possibility of the incorporation of multifunctional components on the surfaces of resins for carrying out a chemical reaction as well as detection of the product.