Ag nanoparticles anchored onto porous CuO nanobelts for the ultrasensitive electrochemical detection of dopamine in human serum

The potential capability to rapid, highly sensitive, and selective diagnose neurotransmitters in human serum environment is extremely crucial for clinical biology. Herein an electrochemical sensor based on Ag nano -particles anchored onto CuO porous nanobelts (Ag/CuO PNBs) was constructed for the ultrasensitive determination of dopamine (DA), which was prepared via a facile two-step cation-exchange reaction followed by in-situ thermal conversion. The Ag/CuO PNBs exhibited an excellent electrochemical sensing performance to DA. The linear range for the detection of DA was ranged from 0.04 to 10 mu M with an outstanding detection limit of 7.0 nM. Cyclic voltammograms (CVs) were employed to investigate kinetic information of multiphase electron transfer reactions, revealing that Ag nanoparticles significantly enhanced electrocatalytic activity toward DA owing to the participation of Ag(0)/Ag(I) cycle. Meanwhile, the Ag/CuO PNBs showed the significant selectivity, remarkable stability and repeatability, as well as attractive reproducibility (RSD <= 3.7 %). Furthermore, the practicality of the developed sensor has been evaluated by analyzing DA in serum-containing electrolyte, and the recovery in the range of 95.7-111.1 % was obtained. The results confirmed that the as-prepared sensor presented a significant promise for the detection of DA in real sample analysis.

Automated summary

An electrochemical sensor based on Ag nano-particles anchored onto CuO porous nanobelts was constructed for ultra-sensitive determination of dopamine. The sensor exhibited excellent sensing performance with a linear range from 0.04 to 10 μM and a detection limit of 7.0 nM. It showed significant promise for detection of dopamine in real sample analysis.