Electrochemical sensing of phenolics based on copper/cobalt/nitrogen co-doped hollow nanocarbon spheres

In this work, by the self-polymerization/reduction of dopamine with metal ions and sequentially carbonization as well as etching, copper/cobalt/nitrogen co-doped three-dimensional hollow nanocarbon spheres (Cu/Co/N-HNCS) novel nanomaterial was prepared successfully by simple processes, and then Cu/Co/N-HNCS was used in electrochemical sensing through using acetaminophen (ACAP), catechol (CC) and hydroquinone (HQ) as phenolic models. The electrochemical behaviors of three phenolics at various modified electrodes (Cu/Co/N-HNCS, Co/N-HNCS, Cu/N-HNCS and N-HNCS modified electrodes) were investigated; meanwhile, ACAP was selected as a representative target to study thoroughly the sensing performances of Cu/Co/N-HNCS towards phenolics. The results indicate that Cu/Co/N-HNCS electrode can exhibit excellent sensing capabilities owing to the synergistic properties of each component in nanomaterial, and the limit of detection (LOD) for ACAP is 0.039 μM coupled with wide linear range. The proposed methodologies herein for preparing tri-element doped carbon nanomaterials and detecting phenolics are very simple, low cost and environmentally friendly, thus confirming that they have important potential applications.