Green synthesis of porous carbon nanocubes accumulated microspheres for the simultaneous non-enzymatic sensing of uric acid and dopamine in the presence of ascorbic acid

Abstract

Nanomaterials synthesis from biowastes is becoming one of the green strategies towards the production of toxic solvents- and pollution-free materials and in that view, we have prepared porous carbon nanocubes accumulated microspheres (PCMS) and tested its efficacy for the electrochemical sensing of both uric acid (UA) and dopamine (DA) simultaneously in the presence of ascorbic acid. The PCMS nanomaterial successfully synthesized by echo-free pyrolysis of neighborhood collected coconut shell at 450 °C under air atmospheric condition in a muffle furnace. From the physical characterization, we found that the formed product is crystalline in nature (powdered XRD) and the FTIR analysis provided the surface functionality and bonding, while the UV-Vis spectroscopy for the optical properties. The low-resolution SEM studies indicated for a uniform spherical like structure (1 µM size) and the high-resolution TEM image support for the formation of PCMS absolutely in cubic structure (20 nm size). Hence, it may be an accumulation of the cubic nanocrystal to a spherical microstructure which has played vital performance due to the high surface area spherical structure and porosity. On testing of PCMS’s sensing efficiency, the cyclic voltammetry (CV) and differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) techniques showed well-detached oxidation peaks both for UA and DA. The lowest detection limits were observed to be 10 nM and 1 nM for the UA and DA respectively, and based on such low values of detection, this signal to noise ratio of the sensor can be applicable for real-time detection of UA and DA efflux from human nerve cells.