A highly sensitive non-enzymatic glucose electrochemical sensor based on NiO nanohives

Abstract

Abstract Diabetes is a dangerous chronic disease leading to death. Regular glucose level monitoring in the blood is very important to reduce the risk of diabetes. A lot of methods have been developed to measure the glucose concentration. The non-enzymatic glucose sensor is one of the efficient methods, which has attracted much attention from researchers. In this work, a facile process for the synthesis of NiO nanohives on the surface of nickel foam substrate was reported to apply for the non-enzymatic glucose electrochemical sensing. Morphologies and components of the obtained materials were characterised by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy. FE-SEM images show homogeneous NiO nanohives covering the surface of nickel foam with each cavity diameter of 300–500 nm. Cyclic voltammetry and amperometry were conducted to measure the electrochemical properties of the synthesised NiO/Ni electrodes. The results show that the sensor is highly sensitive (10.08 mA mM−1 cm−2) with a low detection limit (7.25 μA), which is evaluated highly potential to apply for the non-enzymatic glucose electrochemical sensor.