Room temperature ultrafast synthesis of zinc oxide nanomaterials via hydride generation for non-enzymatic glucose detection
Zhipeng Wang, Jiahui Zhang, Rui Jian, Jing Liao, Xiaoli Xiong, Ke Huang
Abstract
A highly sensitive electrochemical non-enzymatic glucose (Glu) sensor has been developed based on zinc oxide nanomaterials (ZnO NMs), which was synthesized by a novel and ultrafast strategy based on headspace hydride generation (HG) at room temperature (RT). The preparation of ZnO NMs was performed in gas–solid phase by introducing ZnH2 gas (generated on-line by reducing Zn2+ with KBH4) into carbon cloth (CC) in a sealed headspace bottle. ZnH2 was unstable, can easily decompose and react with O2 in the headspace bottle to form ZnO NMs on CC. The whole preparation process was completed in minute-level under ambient conditions, which was utilized to be a feasible catalyst electrode for highly sensitive Glu sensing afterwards. It is found that the developed sensor has an excellent glucose sensing performance with high corresponding sensitivity of 4792 μA mM−1 cm−2, which was better than other ZnO-based catalysts reported. The measurement results indicate that ZnO/CC presents a short response time of less than 3 s, a wide linear range from 1 μM to 1.45 mM, a low detection of limit (LOD) of 0.43 μM (S/N = 3). Besides, the possible mechanism was discussed. Glu in serum samples has been detected with satisfactory results by the proposed material.