Morphology-dependent Electrochemical Enhancements of Porous Carbon as Sensitive Determination Platform for Ascorbic Acid, Dopamine and Uric Acid.

Qin Cheng,Weikang Zhang,Kangbing Wu,Liudi Ji

doi:10.1038/srep22309

Qin Cheng, Weikang Zhang + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/srep22309

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Abstract

Using starch as the carbon precursor and different-sized ZnO naoparticles as the hard template, a series of porous carbon materials for electrochemical sensing were prepared. Experiments of scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy and Nitrogen adsorption-desorption isotherms reveal that the particle size of ZnO has big impacts on the porous morphology and surface area of the resulting carbon materials. Through ultrasonic dispersion of porous carbon and subsequent solvent evaporation, different sensing interfaces were constructed on the surface of glassy carbon electrode (GCE). The electrochemical behaviors of ascorbic acid (AA), dopamine (DA) and uric acid (UA) were studied. On the surface of porous carbon materials, the accumulation efficiency and electron transfer ability of AA, DA and UA are improved, and consequently their oxidation signals enhance greatly. Moreover, the interface enhancement effects of porous carbon are also controlled by the particle size of hard template. The constructed porous carbon interface displays strong signal amplification ability and holds great promise in constructing a sensitive platform for the simultaneous determination of AA, DA and UA.

Highlights

Electrochemical sensing has obtained considerable attention due to the following advantages such as high sensitivity, rapidness, good handling convenience, qualification for in situ monitoring and excellent compatibility with miniaturization technologies
A series of porous carbon materials were prepared using ZnO nanoparticles with diameters of [15, 30, 50] and 100 nm as the hard templates
We clearly find that the enhancement effects of the prepared porous carbon are related to the template size

Summary

Introduction

Electrochemical sensing has obtained considerable attention due to the following advantages such as high sensitivity, rapidness, good handling convenience, qualification for in situ monitoring and excellent compatibility with miniaturization technologies. A large number of researches have proved that interface modification is an efficient strategy to improve the performance of electrochemical sensors[1,2,3,4]. Preparation of high-performance electrode materials and construction of novel sensing interface are quite important. An important branch of porous materials, is highly appealing due to the exceptional characteristics including large surface area, tunable pore size over a wide range, strong accumulation ability and high stability[9,10,11]. The constructed sensing interfaces using porous carbon exhibit high electrochemical reactivtiy toward the oxidation of AA, DA and UA, and greatly enhance their oxidation signals. Based on the structure-controlled interface enhancement ability, a novel electrochemical sensing platform with high sensitivity has been developed for AA, DA and UA

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Conclusion