An ultrasensitive electrochemical sensor based on boron-doped porous graphene for efficient detection of nitrite in food

Boron (B) doping plays a critical role in adjusting the electronic properties of carbon materials. In this work, B-doped porous graphene (B-PG) was successfully prepared by a simple strategy and used as an advanced electrode material for the detection of nitrite (NO-2) in food. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM), high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Raman spectroscopy, cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) were employed to characterize this B-PG. Due to the ideal doping of boron atoms, the material has good conductivity and exhibits excellent electrochemical catalytic performance. NO-2 was used as the representative analytes to demonstrate the sensing performance of B-PG. It is found that the B-PG modified GCE exhibited a linear response over the concentration range from 3 μM - 3 mM and 3 mM - 15 mM, with a detection limit of 1.1 μM. The designed electrochemical sensor has good analytical performance, such as high sensitivity, good reproducibility and acceptable accuracy, and can be successfully applied to the accurate and precise detection of residual NO-2 in food.