Nitrogen functionlized graphene quantum dots/3D bismuth oxyiodine hybrid hollow microspheres as remarkable photoelectrode for photoelectrochemical sensing of chlopyrifos

Abstract

This work presents a selective and reliable visible-light driven photoelectrochemical (PEC) chlopyrifos sensor using nitrogen functionalized graphene quantum dots/3D bismuth oxyiodine (NFGQDs/3DBiOI) hybrid hollow microspheres (HHMs) as a remarkable photoelectrode. In this protocol, a facile one-pot solvothermal reaction was used for the synthesis of the new NFGQDs/3DBiOI HHMs, which achieved significant enhancement (ca. 18-fold) photocurrent generation compared to pure BiOI microspheres by virtue of the band gap narrowing and the electron transfer acceleration of such HHMs. In addition, the introduction of chlorpyrifos pesticide enabled the formation of Bi-chlorpyrifos complex which resulted in quenching the charge transfer efficiency, thus leading to a decrease in photocurrent intensity and selective PEC recording of chlorpyrifos level. This novel PEC sensor exerted predominant performance for chlorpyrifos detection including wide linear range (0.1–50 ng mL−1), low detection limit (0.03 ng mL−1), satisfactory selectivity and also good feasibility in real water sample analysis. The strategy presented here implying that a three-dimensional hollow nanostructure would play a crucial role in developing multifarious novel detection methodologies in PEC sensing fields.