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Tailoring the d-band center on Ru1Cu single-atom alloy nanotubes for boosting electrochemical non-enzymatic glucose sensing

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Abstract

The development of cost-effective and highly efficient electrocatalysts is critical to help electrochemical non-enzymatic sensors achieve high performance. Here, a new class of catalyst, Ru single atoms confined on Cu nanotubes as a single-atom alloy (Ru1Cu NTs), with a unique electronic structure and property, was developed to construct a novel electrochemical non-enzymatic glucose sensor for the first time. The Ru1Cu NTs with a diameter of about 24.0 nm showed a much lower oxidation potential (0.38 V) and 9.0-fold higher response (66.5 μA) current than Cu nanowires (Cu NWs, oxidation potential 0.47 V and current 7.4 μA) for glucose electrocatalysis. Moreover, as an electrochemical non-enzymatic glucose sensor, Ru1Cu NTs not only exhibited twofold higher sensitivity (54.9 μA mM−1 cm−2) and wider linear range (0.5–8 mM) than Cu NWs, but also showed a low detection limit (5.0 μM), excellent selectivity, and great stability. According to theoretical calculation results, the outstanding catalytic and sensing performance of Ru1Cu NTs could be ascribed to the upshift of the d-band center that helped promote glucose adsorption. This work presents a new avenue for developing highly active catalysts for electrochemical non-enzymatic sensors.

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Acknowledgements

Changsheng Shan acknowledges the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 22274036, 21874031) and “Chu-Tian Scholar” Program of Hubei Province. Y. Zhao thanks the support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 22302059). The numerical calculations in this paper have been done on the supercomputing system in the Supercomputing Center of Wuhan University. Part of the work performed at the Advanced Photon Source, U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science User Facilities, was supported by the U.S. DOE, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357. J.L. and X.G. also acknowledge the WSU-PNNL Nuclear Science and Technology Institute, and Alexandra Navrotsky Institute for Experimental Thermodynamics.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hubei Key Laboratory for Precision Synthesis of Small Molecule Pharmaceuticals, Collaborative Innovation Center for Advanced Organic Chemical Materials Co-constructed by the Province and Ministry, Ministry-of-Education Key Laboratory for the Synthesis and Application of Organic Functional Molecules, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Hubei University, Wuhan, 430062, People’s Republic of China

    Shuang Zhang, Yunhao Jiang, Wenli Lei, Yuanmeng Zhao & Changsheng Shan

  2. The Institute for Advanced Studies (IAS), Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072, People’s Republic of China

    Yueming Zhai

  3. Department of Chemistry and School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, 99164, USA

    Juejing Liu & Xiaofeng Guo

  4. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, 60115, USA

    Xingyi Lyu & Tao Li

  5. X-Ray Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, IL, 60439, USA

    Tao Li

  6. Center for Advanced Analytical Science, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou, 510006, People’s Republic of China

    Li Niu

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  1. Shuang Zhang
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Contributions

Shuang Zhang: experiment, methodology, investigation, drawing, writing the original draft. Yunhao Jian: experiment, investigation. Wenlin Lei: investigation. Juejing Liu: experiment, writing the original draft. Xingyi Lyu: resources. Tao Li: resources. Yueming Zhai: resources. Xiaofeng Guo: resources, supervision, writing — review and editing. Yuanmeng Zhao: supervision, funding acquisition, writing — review and editing. Changsheng Shan: resources, supervision, funding acquisition, writing — review and editing. Li Niu: resources, writing — review and editing.

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Correspondence to Xiaofeng Guo, Yuanmeng Zhao or Changsheng Shan.

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Zhang, S., Jiang, Y., Lei, W. et al. Tailoring the d-band center on Ru1Cu single-atom alloy nanotubes for boosting electrochemical non-enzymatic glucose sensing. Anal Bioanal Chem (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-024-05284-y

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