Titanium Dioxide Nanofibers Decorated Nickel Nanoparticles as Effective Electrocatalyst for Urea Oxidation

Abstract

The improvement of nanotechnology has been increasing along the last years and nanostructured materials have important consideration due to their unique properties. In this work, for the first time, a novel construction procedure for urea oxidation based on titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanofibers (NFs) decorated Ni nanoparticles (NiNPs) is reported. Nickel nanoparticles were electrodeposed on the surface of titanium dioxide nanofibers (TNF-NiNPs) and the resulting modified electrode was characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Urea electro-oxidation reaction in NaOH solution on (TNF-NiNPs) as electrode is studied by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and chronoamperometry (CA) method. The surface coverage of TNF-NiNPs /GC electrode was calculated to be г*a =4.16× 10-7 mol cm2, which is higher than corresponding value reported for the urea biosensor using Ni matrix. The electrochemical results showed that the presented electrode is effective and has good electrocatalytic activity for urea oxidation and the structures of nanofibers have great effect on the electrooxidation of urea. Keywords: Urea electrooxidation; Electrospinning; Nickel nanoparticles; Titanium dioxide nanofiber