title: One-step thermal-treatment route to fabricate well-dispersed ZnO nanocrystals on nitrogen-doped graphene for enhanced electrochemiluminescence and ultrasensitive detection of pentachlorophenol.
abstract: Heteroatom doping enables graphene with novel properties and thus may broaden the potential of graphene-based materials. In this paper, novel ZnO-nanocrystal-decorated nitrogen-doped graphene (N-GR) composites were prepared through a one-step thermal-treatment route using glycine as the nitrogen source. ZnO nanocrystals with a size about 8 nm were well-dispersed and tightly anchored on the N-GR sheet. Compared with ZnO-nanocrystal-decorated undoped graphene, the ZnO/N-GR nanocomposites could not only enhance the electrochemiluminescence (ECL) intensity by 4.3-fold but also moved the ECL onset potential positively for ∼200 mV. All these results could be ascribed to the presence of nitrogen in graphene which decreased the barrier of ZnO nanocrystals reduction. Furthermore, the ECL sensor based on ZnO/N-GR nanocomposites was fabricated for the ultrasensitive detection of pentachlorophenol (PCP). This recyclable and eco-friendly sensor has excellent performances including wide linear range (0.5 pM to ∼61.1 nM), low detection limit (0.16 pM, S/N=3), good selectivity, and stability, which is a promising sensor for practical application in environment analysis.
authors.affiliation: School of Food and Biological Engineering, Jiangsu University , Zhenjiang, 212013, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Ding
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: Xiaojiao
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Du
authors.forename: Qian
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Qian
authors.forename: Kun
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Wang
keywords: ZnO nanocrystal; detection; electrochemiluminescence; nitrogen-doped graphene; pentachlorophenol