A l-tryptophan sensor based on tellurium nanorods modified glassy carbon electrode

Abstract

An electrochemical l-tryptophan sensor based on tellurium nanorods modified glassy carbon electrode was proposed. The tellurium nanorods were synthesized by a chemical reduction method. The morphology and structures of the nanorods were characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and transmission electron microscope (TEM). Owing to the special structure of the tellurium nanorods, the sensor exhibits excellent electrocatalytic ability towards the oxidation of l-tryptophan and shows linearity in the range from 0.02 to 11.48 μM with a sensitivity of 256 μA mM−1 cm−2 with a correlation coefficient of 0.9945. The detection limit was 0.01 μM with signal-to-noise ratio of 3, and the response time was found to be 2 s. Moreover, the sensor also exhibited long-term stability, good reproducibility and anti-interference, thus holding promise for sensing of l-tryptophan in practice.