Title: Diamond for antifouling applications

Abstract

Diamond has emerged as an attractive electrode material over the past decades owing to its exceptional electrochemical properties, including the wide potential window for water stability, low background current, excellent electrochemical stability and antifouling properties. In the case of conductive diamond electrode materials, particularly for boron-doped diamond (BDD), the fouling process can be significantly suppressed because of many factors, such as the weak adsorption of fouling molecules on the respective electrode surface or the potential generation of strong oxidants (e.g., hydroxyl radicals) to suppress the formation of biofilm via self-cleaning. The factors of surface chemistry (e.g., the concentration of boron dopants and surface termination), crystal orientation and surface topography play critical roles in the electrochemically relevant properties of BDD. Recent progress and achievements regarding diamond sensors and biosensors for biologically-related sensing applications, particularly on determining fouling agents, will be summarized, including diamond microelectrodes, BDD based microfluidic devices, and noninvasive wearable sensors. The challenges and future of diamonds for antifouling applications will be discussed. This work will also include environmental applications with respect to wastewater treatment.