One-Dimensional Copper Oxide Nanoparticles Embedded Conductive Nanotube Arrays for High Performance Glucose Sensors

Abstract

Non-enzymatic glucose sensors have been extensively exploited recently. But the nanostructured non-enzymatic sensors often suffer from the aggregation of the nanoscale particles and poor conductivity of the composed metal oxides. In this work, a highly conductive one-dimensional carbon nanofilm coated TiO2 nanotube arrays (TiO2@C NTAs) were fabricated as the substrate. Copper oxide nanoparticles (CuOx NPs) were then deposited on the substrate to prepare CuOx NPs/TiO2@C NTAs as the glucose sensor. Under optimal conditions, the CuOx NPs/TiO2@C NTAs sensor shows a linear dependence on glucose concentration from 0.001 to 2.467 mM, with a sensitivity of 1155.68 μA mM−1 cm−2. The detection limit is 0.17 μM (S/N = 3). The prepared sensor exhibits high reproducibility and selectivity towards glucose determination, with minimal response to the coexistent species such as mannose, fructose, and 4-acetaminophenol, etc. Monitoring glucose from human serum sample has also been conducted, suggesting good reliability of this sensor.