Graphene prepared by one-pot solvent exfoliation as a highly sensitive platform for electrochemical sensing

Can Wu; Qin Cheng; Kangbing Wu; Gang Wu; Qing Li

doi:10.1016/j.aca.2014.03.036

Graphene prepared by one-pot solvent exfoliation as a highly sensitive platform for electrochemical sensing

Anal Chim Acta. 2014 May 12:825:26-33. doi: 10.1016/j.aca.2014.03.036. Epub 2014 Mar 28.

Authors

Can Wu¹, Qin Cheng¹, Kangbing Wu², Gang Wu³, Qing Li⁴

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory for Large-Format Battery Materials and System, Ministry of Education, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China.
² Key Laboratory for Large-Format Battery Materials and System, Ministry of Education, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China. Electronic address: kbwu@hust.edu.cn.
³ Materials Physics and Applications Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545, United States.
⁴ Materials Physics and Applications Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545, United States. Electronic address: qing_li_2@brown.edu.

PMID: 24767147
DOI: 10.1016/j.aca.2014.03.036

Abstract

Graphene was easily obtained via one-step ultrasonic exfoliation of graphite powder in N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone. Scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, Raman and particle size measurements indicated that the exfoliation efficiency and the amount of produced graphene increased with ultrasonic time. The electrochemical properties and analytical applications of the resulting graphene were systematically studied. Compared with the predominantly-used reduced graphene oxides, the obtained graphene by one-step solvent exfoliation greatly enhanced the oxidation signals of various analytes, such as ascorbic acid (AA), dopamine (DA), uric acid (UA), xanthine (XA), hypoxanthine (HXA), bisphenol A (BPA), ponceau 4R, and sunset yellow. The detection limits of AA, DA, UA, XA, HXA, BPA, ponceau 4R, and sunset yellow were evaluated to be 0.8 μM, 7.5 nM, 2.5 nM, 4 nM, 10 nM, 20 nM, 2 nM, and 1 nM, which are much lower than the reported values. Thus, the prepared graphene via solvent exfoliation strategy displays strong signal amplification ability and holds great promise in constructing a universal and sensitive electrochemical sensing platform.

Keywords: Analytical platform; Electrochemical sensing; Graphene; Solvent exfoliation.