Preparation of single-walled carbon nanotubes attached with NiO and CoO as a flexible non-enzymatic glucose sensor

Abstract A flexible buckypaper attached with NiO and CoO (NiO–CoO–BP) was fabricated for electrochemical detection of glucose, exhibiting the characteristics of high conductivity, selectivity, sensitivity and a wide detection range. NiO–CoO–BP comprises two arc discharge-synthesized single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) types. The bottom is a supporting layer of high-crystallinity, high-conductivity purified SWCNT (P-SWCNT) networks, and the upper is a catalytic active layer of SWCNTs loaded with NiO–CoO nanoparticles. The two SWCNT types were combined via vacuum filtration to form a membrane structure. A thermal field scanning electron microscope was used to characterize the morphology of NiO–CoO–BP, while an x-ray diffractometer and Raman spectroscopy were employed to determine its structure. Under optimized conditions, the electrochemical test of the flexible glucose sensor constructed with NiO–CoO–BP exhibited a wide linear range of 2–20 mM, a sensitivity of up to 3789.17 μ A·mM −1 ·cm −2 , and a low detection limit of 37 μ M. The test results of this work indicate that flexible NiO–CoO–BP composed of P-SWCNTs and NiO–CoO-SWCNTs has great application prospects in wearable biosensors.