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Synthesis of CuO/g-C3N4 composites, and their application to voltammetric sensing of glucose and dopamine

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Abstract

The preparation of 3 kinds of carbonaceous nanocomposites by hydrothermal treatment and subsequent calcination described. The first comprises a nanomaterial of type CuO/g-C3N4, with g-C3N4 in mass fractions of 2, 5 and 7 wt%, respectively. The second comprises CuO/porous carbon (5 wt%), and the third comprises CuO/carbon spheres (5 wt%). All of them were employed to modify a glassy carbon electrode (GCE) to obtain electrochemical sensors for glucose and dopamine. The GCE modified with CuO/g-C3N4 (5 wt%) displays the highest electrocatalytic activity towards glucose and dopamine. Figures of merit for sensing glucose (in 0.1 M NaOH solution) include a wide linear range (0.5 μM to 8.5 mM), a detection limit of 0.150 μM, and a sensitivity of 0.274 μA·μM−1·cm−2 (at a working potential of 0.60 V vs. Ag/AgCl). The respective data for dopamine (in pH 7.0 solution) are linear ranges from 0.2-16.0 μM and 16.0-78.7 μM, a lower detection limit of 60 nM, and an electrochemical sensitivity of 0.834 and 0.331 μA·μM−1·cm−2 (at a working potential of 0.22 V vs. Ag/AgCl). The good performance of the modified GCE is attributed to the synergetic interactions between CuO and the appropriate fraction of g-C3N4, and the improvement of conductivity.

Schematic presentation of a electrochemical sensor based on CuO/g-C3N4 for the determination of glucose and dopamine.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 21205030), and by key project of Hubei provincial education department (D20171001), and Hubei Key Laboratory of Ferro & Piezoelectric Materials and Devices (201710), and (111 project, B12015).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hubei Collaborative Innovation Center for Advanced Organic Chemical Materials & Key Laboratory for Green Preparation and Application for Functional Materials, Ministry of Education & College of Chemistry & Chemical Engineering, Hubei University, Wuhan, 430062, People’s Republic of China

    Yanli Huang, Yi Tan, Chuanqi Feng, Shiquan Wang & Huimin Wu

  2. Key Laboratory of Advanced Energy Materials Chemistry (Ministry of Education), Nankai University, Tianjin, 300071, People’s Republic of China

    Huimin Wu

  3. School of Nuclear Technology and Chemistry & Biology, Hubei University of Science and Technology, Xianning, 437100, China

    Guangxue Zhang

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  1. Yanli Huang
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Correspondence to Huimin Wu or Guangxue Zhang.

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Huang, Y., Tan, Y., Feng, C. et al. Synthesis of CuO/g-C3N4 composites, and their application to voltammetric sensing of glucose and dopamine. Microchim Acta 186, 10 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00604-018-3120-z

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