Novel thermal synthesis of ternary Cu-CuO-Cu2O nanospheres supported on reduced graphene oxide for the sensitive non-enzymatic electrochemical detection of pyruvic acid as a cancer biomarker
Fatah Ben Moussa, Chafia Ait Ramdane-Terbouche, Achour Terbouche, Hakim Belkhalfa, Djamila Guerniche, Ahmed Zouaoui
Abstract
In this present research, we have developed a novel electrochemical sensing platform based on ternary Cu-CuO-Cu 2 O nanospheres supported on reduced graphene oxide (rGO-Cu-CuO-Cu 2 O) for the practical non-enzymatic detection of Pyruvic acid (PA) as a metabolism-based cancer biomarker. The facile route of this synthesis was mainly based on two steps, including the physical adsorption of a copper complex into reduced graphene oxide followed by thermal calcination at 700°C. The characterization of the rGO-Cu-CuO-Cu 2 O nanocomposite was performed using X-ray Diffraction (XRD), attenuated reflectance infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Raman Spectroscopy, cyclic voltammetry, and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The findings showed that GCE/Nafion/ rGO-Cu-CuO-Cu 2 O exhibits excellent electrocatalytic activity toward Pyruvic acid reduction. The quantitative analysis of Pyruvic acid was carried out using differential pulse voltammetry (DPV), where the limit of detection (LOD) and the limit of quantification (LOD) were calculated to be 1.21 µM and 3.68 µM, respectively; also, a wide linear range was achieved covering the natural PA values in biological fluids from 5 to 370 µM with excellent selectivity and reproducibility. Furthermore, the reliability of the proposed sensor was demonstrated using real human serum samples, and good recoveries were obtained.