PEG-templated assembling of Co3O4 nanosheets with nanoparticles for enhanced sensitive non-enzymatic glucose sensing performance

Abstract

The porous Co3O4 nanosheets have been prepared by a hydrothermal and subsequent calcination processes using polyethylene glycol as soft morphology controlled template. The morphology, structure, and composition of the materials were characterized by SEM, TEM, HRTEM, XRD and XPS. The as prepared Co3O4 have a porous sheet-like structure composed of nanoparticles with average diameter less than 100 nm. Moreover, the as-prepared Co3O4 nanosheets exhibited greatly improved electrochemical performance than that of Co3O4 spheres, which may be due to the porous sheet-like structures beneficial for high efficiency of charge transfer and analytes diffusion. The Co3O4 modified electrode exhibited excellent electrochemical performance with a wide linear range from 2 to 3420 µM, sensitivity of 745.26 µA mM− 1cm− 2 and detection limit of 0.65 µM. The higher electrocatalytic activity of Co3O4 nanosheets to glucose oxidation demonstrated it may be a favorable candidate for the development of non-enzymatic sensor.