PbS/graphene hybrid nanostructures coated glassy carbon electrode for the electrochemical sensing of copper ions in aqueous solution.

Abstract

In this research, we have studied the electrochemical sensing of Cu(II) ions in aqueous solution using PbS/Graphene composite nanostructure coated glassy carbon electrode (GCE). The SEM-EDAX analysis revealed that the lead sulphide nanocrystals are homogeneously embedded on the graphene nanosheets with an uniform particle size of 100nm, and the elements presents 92.32% and Lead content of 5.45% and Sulfur content of 0.91%. Raman spectra exhibits G with respect to the E2g sp2 hybridized C-C and D band with respect to the A1g mode in the disordered edge region of the GNS. The composite nanostructure coated GCE (PbS/Graphene/GCE) was prepared and its performance in the existence of metal ions such us Cd(II),Pb(II), Mg(II), Cu(II) and Ni(II) was studied using the current voltage curves in double distilled water within the scan rates of 25 to 300mVs-1. The PbS/Graphene coated carbon electrode exhibited the higher anodic and cathodic peak current for copper solution than the other metal ions studied, which various linearly proportional to concentration. The electrochemical sensing characteristics PbS/GNS/GCE was found to be significant towards detecting Cu2+ ion within the concentration range of 1×10-4 to 1×10-8M, with a lowest sensing detection limit of 1×10-8M.