Synthesis of wearable and flexible NiP0.1-SnOx/PANI/CuO/cotton towards a non-enzymatic glucose sensor

Ni-SnOx, PANI and CuO nanoparticles were synthesized on cotton fabric through chemical methods to make a new flexible high-performance non-enzymatic glucose sensor. FESEM, XRD, XPS, EDS and ATR analysis were employed to characterize the structure and the morphology of the nanomaterials. The high electrochemical performance of nickel and copper oxide and hydroxide on a conductive template leads to fabrication of a wearable and flexible cotton electrode with an excellent electrocatalytic activity to oxidize glucose. This hybrid system on the fabric as an electrode indicates a detection limit of 130 nM with wide linear range of 0.001–10 mM. The sensitivity was measured to be 1625 and 1325 μA mM−1 cm−2 for the ranges of 0.001–1 and 1–10 mM, respectively. Long-term stability, appropriate selectivity and reusability for many times make possibility for utilizing the fabricated sensor in the practical applications. The fabric is a wide linear range electrode with low detection limit to sense glucose concentration in the body fluids as well as the human blood that can be presumably suggested for designing other similar flexible types of sensor.