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Synergistically enhancing electrocatalysis and non-enzymatic sensing for glucose by iridium single-atom/nickel oxide/N-doped graphene

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Abstract

The development of novel catalyst with high catalytic activity is important for electrochemical non-enzymatic glucose sensing. Here, iridium single-atom/nickel oxide nanoparticle/N-doped graphene nanosheet (Ir1/NiO/NG) with the loading of 1.13 wt% Ir was successfully synthesized for constructing electrochemical non-enzymatic glucose sensor for the first time. The morphology and structure of Ir1/NiO/NG were characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM, HRTEM, and XPS, and the presence of Ir SAs was confirmed by AC-HAADF-STEM. The Ir1/NiO/NG shows 65 mV lower oxidation potential and 3.3 times higher response current than Ni(OH)2/NG. In addition, Ir1/NiO/NG exhibits high sensitivity (70.09 μA mM−1 cm−2), excellent selectivity, low detection limit (2.00 μM), and great stability (91.53% current remaining after 21 days) for electrochemical non-enzymatic glucose sensing. The outstanding catalytic and sensing performance of Ir1/NiO/NG is mainly attributed to synergistic effect of Ir SAs, NiO nanoparticles, and highly conductive NG, which modulate the electronic and geometric structure of Ir1/NiO/NG. This work shows the promising potential of SACs in electrochemical sensing.

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Funding

Changsheng Shan acknowledges the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant Nos. 22274036 and 21874031) and “Chu-Tian Scholar” Program of Hubei Province. Yuanmeng Zhao thanks the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant No. 22302059).

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Yaojiang Zhou: methodology, conceptualization, investigation, formal analysis, investigation, and writing, original draft. Wen Wei: methodology and investigation. Wenli Lei: methodology and investigation. Fudong Li: methodology and investigation. Jiaxi Shu: methodology and investigation. Zixuan Deng: methodology and investigation. Wenyu Hui: methodology and investigation. Yuanmeng Zhao: resources, discussion, and writing, review and editing. Changsheng Shan: methodology, conceptualization, resources, supervision, and writing, review and editing.

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Correspondence to Changsheng Shan.

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Published in the topical collection featuring Nanozymes with guest editors Vipul Bansal, Sudipta Seal, and Hui Wei.

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Zhou, Y., Wei, W., Lei, W. et al. Synergistically enhancing electrocatalysis and non-enzymatic sensing for glucose by iridium single-atom/nickel oxide/N-doped graphene. Anal Bioanal Chem (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-024-05226-8

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