Facile green synthesis of graphene–titanium nitride hybrid nanostructure for the simultaneous determination of acetaminophen and 4-aminophenol

Abstract

We demonstrate herein a newly developed electrochemical sensor base on the reduced graphene oxide–titanium nitride (RGO–TiN) nanohybrid. The nanohybrid was prepared by mixing the TiN nanoparticles and GO dispersion and then treating with glucose and Zn foils. The morphologies and microstructures of the as-prepared nanohybrid were characterized by UV–vis absorption spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy and Raman spectroscopy. The as-prepared RGO–TiN nanohybrid exhibited excellent electrocatalytic activity toward the simultaneous detection of acetaminophen (ACOP) and 4-aminophenol (4-AP). As a result, the linear detection ranges were 0.06–660μM for ACOP and 0.05–520μM for 4-AP, respectively, with the low detection limits of 0.02μM for ACOP and 0.013μM for 4-AP. Based on the excellent performance, it was demonstrated that the prepared RGO–TiN nanohybrid was a promising candidate for advanced electrode material in electrochemical sensing field and the as-prepared RGO–TiN nanohybrid may find more applications for the detection of various analytes.