Ultrasensitive and selective electrochemical sensor for nanomolar dopamine determination based on MnS/Co3S4 hybrids embedded on electrochemically reduced graphene oxide

Abstract

An ultrasensitive and selective electrochemical sensor has been constructed for the quantitative assay of dopamine (DA) based on hollow tubular manganese-cobalt sulfide (MnS/Co3S4) hybrids embedded on electrochemically reduced graphene oxide (ErGO). The MnS/Co3S4 heterostructures were created by two-step ion exchange method, of which Co9S8 with hollow tubular structures was fabricated by solvothermal method using the self-made cobalt chloride carbonate hydroxide (CO(CO3)0.35Cl0.20(OH)1.10) as precursor and sodium disulfide monohydrate as sulfur source and manganese chloride as manganese source. The MnS/Co3S4-ErGO/GCE could exhibit strong catalytic ability for the redox reaction of DA. Under the optimal conditions, the developed sensor exhibits a wide linear response for DA ranging from 6.0 nM to 20.0 μM by second-order derivative linear sweep voltammetry (SDLSV), with a detection limit of 2.0 nM. In addition, the developed method exhibited high sensitivity and selectivity, good reproducibility and low-cost. It is a very promising analytical method for the determination of DA in pharmaceutical and biological samples.