Hierarchical and hollow boron/nitrogen co-doped yolk-shell mesoporous carbon nanospheres attached to reduced graphene oxide with high sensing performance for the simultaneous detection of xanthine and guanosine

• Published in: Sensors and actuators. B, Chemical Vol. 343; p. 130068
• Main Authors: Zhu, Di, Chu, Mingyue, Xin, Jianjiao, Wang, Xinming, O’Halloran, Kevin P., Ma, Huiyuan, Pang, Haijun, Tan, Lichao, Yang, Guixin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Lausanne Elsevier B.V 15-09-2021; Elsevier Science Ltd
• Subjects: Biomolecules; Boron; Boron/nitrogen co-doped; Carbon; Carbon nanospheres; Electrical resistivity; Electron transport; Graphene; Guanosines; Nanospheres; Nitrogen; Selectivity; Simultaneous detection; Structural hierarchy; Xanthine and guanosine; Yolk-shell structure; Boron/nitrogen co-doped; Xanthine and guanosine; Simultaneous detection; Yolk-shell structure; Graphene; Carbon nanospheres
• ISSN: 0925-4005; 1873-3077
• DOI: 10.1016/j.snb.2021.130068

•Construction of novel boron/nitrogen co-doped yolk-shell mesoporous carbon nanospheres.•Heteroatoms doping optimize surface polarity and electrocatalytic capacity.•Graphene as support promote conductivity and restrict self-agglomeration.•Well structural virtues and synergistic effect endow high property for xanthine and guanosine detection.•This work opens up a significant opportunity to develop 3D porous carbon material.
A novel type of hierarchical boron/nitrogen co-doped yolk-shell hollow mesoporous carbon nanospheres (Yolk-shell B,N-MCNSs) was designed and developed through a simple and direct template method. Specifically, the co-doped heteroatoms contribute to enhancing the electric conductivity, surface polarity of carbon framework, and leading to extra sites graft into carbon surface. Subsequently, the introduction of reduced graphene oxide (rGO) as a highly conductive and robust support promotes the electron transport as well as restricts the self-agglomeration of the Yolk-shell B,N-MCNSs. Consequently, the Yolk-shell B,N-MCNSs/rGO exhibits the unique architectural features of both a unique 3D multi-level porous structure and a hierarchical connectivity, providing more active sites for electrochemical reaction and a favorable path for easy penetration of electrons, ions, and biomolecules. Due to the inherent merits of components, and together with unique structural advantages, the obtained Yolk-shell B,N-MCNSs/rGO manifests excellent sensing performance for synchronous detection of xanthine and guanosine with a wide linear range from 9.15 × 10−8 to 1.03 × 10-4 M and 8.22 × 10−8 to 1.28 × 10-4 M, a lower detection limit of 5.03 × 10−8 M and 4.62 × 10−8 M, respectively, and good durability. Additionally, it exhibits outstanding selectivity for common interfering species and satisfactory recoveries in serum which suggests its feasibility for practical application.