Study on the oriented self-assembly of cuprous oxide micro-nano cubes and its application as a non-enzymatic glucose sensor

Abstract

Herein, cuprous oxide (Cu2O) micro-nano cubes were successfully synthesized via a seed-medium process. It is worth noting that the microcubes were formed by oriented self-assembly of 2 × 2 × 2 nanocubes. The oriented self-assembly process can be effective controlled by simply adjusting the concentration of reactants. What’s more, the obtained samples were applied for non-enzymatic glucose detection and exhibited excellent performance. The Cu2O nanocubes obtained at the highest concentration exhibited the highest sensitivity (2864 μAmM−1cm−2), while the Cu2O microcubes obtained at the lowest concentration shared the widest linear range (up to 10.65 mM) and lowest limit of detection (LOD, 0.87 μΜ). The acceptable anti-interference ability, excellent stability together with the practical application ability make our obtained electrodes a new strategy for monitoring glucose in biological and food samples.