Nitrogen and sulfur co-doped Nb2C-MXene nanosheets for the ultrasensitive electrochemical detection dopamine under acidic conditions in gastric juice

Abstract

Nitrogen and sulfur co-doped Nb 2 C MXene (NS-Nb 2 C) which successfully synthesized in a one-step treatment of Nb 2 C using thiourea as N,S resource is used as a stable and high-performance sensing material for highly sensitive detection of dopamine (DA) in gastric juice under acidic conditions. The NS-Nb 2 C is more electrochemically active than multilayered Nb 2 C nanosheets (ML-Nb 2 C) and delaminated Nb 2 C nanosheets (DL-Nb 2 C) under acidic conditions due to the provision of active sites, high surface area and enhanced conductivity caused by the heteroatom doping strategy. • A novel electrochemical sensor based on nitrogen and sulfur co-doped Nb 2 C MXene is proposed for DA detection in gastric juice. • NS-Nb 2 C is more electrochemically active than multilayered Nb 2 C nanosheets and delaminated Nb 2 C nanosheets. • This work provides a new direction for the application of Nb-based MXene in the electrochemical sensing applications. • Nitrogen and sulfur co-doping is an effective method to improve the electrochemical performance of MXene. This work reports the synthesis and application of nitrogen and sulfur co-doped Nb 2 C MXene (NS-Nb 2 C) for the sensing of dopamine (DA) in gastric juice. NS-Nb 2 C MXene was successfully synthesized in a one-step treatment of Nb 2 C using thiourea as N,S resource. The heteroatom doping strategy enables introduction of N,S into MXene nanosheets and simultaneously induces the increased interlayer spacing, high surface area, and enhanced electrical conductivity. It was found that NS-Nb 2 C is more electrochemically active than multilayered Nb 2 C nanosheets (ML-Nb 2 C) and delaminated Nb 2 C nanosheets (DL-Nb 2 C). Based on this, the as-prepared NS-Nb 2 C/Nafion/GCE was used to study the electrochemical behavior of dopamine in pH = 3.0. The sensing interface not only utilizes the unique two-dimensional (2D) nanosheet morphology of Nb 2 C that has a larger surface area and conductive network, but also takes advantage of the more active sites provided by doping. This enables the sensor to achieve ultra-sensitive detection of dopamine (S/N = 3) with a low limit of detection (LOD) of 0.12 µM. In addition, the prepared sensor has good stability and selectivity, and the results of detecting DA in simulated gastric juice is satisfactory. The results indicated that the Nb-based MXenes provided a promising tool for acidic electrochemical sensing applications.