Assist of multi-walled carbon nanotubes toward metal–organic framework chamfer cube-derived rambutan-like cobalt oxide@hollow chain and its application for non-enzymatic glucose sensing

Herein, a novel preparation strategy has been performed to obtain the highly dispersed Co3O4 nanoparticles coated hollow carbon chain (Co3O4NPs@HCC) with the aid of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs). Such electrode material has rambutan-like surface and hollow structure, which is derived from ZIF-67 chamfer cube chain. More importantly, the Co3O4NPs@HCC-MWCNTs exhibits excellent electrochemical performances for glucose sensing because of the highly distinguished surface structure, leading to the high-efficiency reaction interface for the non-enzymatic electrocatalytic oxidation of glucose. The sensing mechanism and structure-activity relationship of Co3O4NPs@HCC-MWCNTs have been carefully considered by the control experiments. The Co3O4NPs, HCC and MWCNTs form a novel material structure, where each part has important functions to contribute the high-performance behaviors of Co3O4NPs@HCC-MWCNTs. The established Co3O4NPs@HCC-MWCNTs-based sensor shows 0.5–100.0 μM of linear detection range (R2 = 0.99998), 43.9 nM of detection limit and 1261 μA mM−1 cm−2 of sensitivity for glucose sensing.