NiCo2O4 nanorod: Synthesis and electrochemical sensing of carcinogenic hydrazine

Abstract

In this work, we explored a simple hydrothermal process to tune the NiCo2O4 morphology into well defined rod structure with nanoparticle on it. The as prepered NiCo2O4 was characterized by various characterization studies such as XRD, Raman, FT-IR, TGA, FESEM, TEM, XPS and HRTEM. The electrochemical sensing of hydrazine on NiCo2O4 nanorod was examined by cyclic voltammetry and differential pulse voltammetry techniques. The NiCo2O4 shows excellent electrocatalytic performance for the anodic oxidation of hydrazine. Interestingly, NiCo2O4 retain considerable current response after 50 cycles at 25 mV s−1. The Ni and Co in bimetal oxides enhanced the current response due to their electroactive sites. The developed NiCo2O4 not only enhanced the current response of hydrazine but also exhibits good stability. NiCo2O4 demonstrates excellent detection limit and sensitivity of 260 nM and 48.25 µA cm−2 mM−1, respectively. For practical application, NiCo2O4/GCE was used for the sensing of hydrazine in real water samples.