Construction of a binder-free non-enzymatic glucose sensor based on Cu@Ni core–shell nanoparticles anchored on 3D chiral carbon nanocoils-nickel foam hierarchical scaffold

Bimetallic nanostructures composited with carbonaceous materials are the potential contenders for quantitative glucose measurement owing to their unique nanostructures, high biomimetic activity, synergistic effects, good conductivity and chemical stability. In the present work, chemical vapors deposition technique has been employed to grow 3D carbon nanocoils (CNCs) with a chiral morphology on hierarchical macroporous nickel foam (NF) to get a CNCs/NF scaffold. Following, bimetallic Cu@Ni core-shell nanoparticles (CSNPs) are effectively coupled with this scaffold through a facile solvothermal route in order to fabricate a binder-free novel Cu@Ni CSNPs/CNCs/NF hybrid nanostructure. The constructed free-standing 3D hierarchical composite electrode guarantees highly efficient glucose redox activity due to core-shell synergistic effects, enhanced electrochemical active surface area, excellent electrochemical stability, improved conductivity with better ion diffusivity and accelerated reaction kinetics. Being a non-enzymatic glucose sensor, this electrode achieves highly swift response time of 0.1 s, ultra-high sensitivity of 6905 μA mM-1 cm-2, low limit of detection of 0.03 μM along with potential selectivity and good storage stability. Moreover, the proposed sensor is also tested successfully for the determination of glucose concentration in human serum samples under good recovery ranging from 96.6 to 102.1 %. The 3D Cu@Ni CSNPs/CNCs/NF composite electrode with unprecedented catalytic performance can be utilized as an ideal biomimetic catalyst in the field of non-enzymatic glucose sensing.