A novel flexible electrochemical glucose sensor based on gold nanoparticles/polyaniline arrays/carbon cloth electrode

Herein, a new flexible nonenzymatic glucose electrochemical sensor was constructed by using flexible Au nanoparticles (AuNPs)/polyaniline (PANI)/carbon cloth (CC) integrated electrode. The PANI was firstly grown on flexible CC electrode surface vertically to form PANI arrays with height of about 200 nm and diameter of about 100 nm as a dispersing and binding agent. Then a large number of 20-nm sized AuNPs with good catalytic activity were electrodeposited on the PANI/CC electrode uniformly. Electrochemical experiments demonstrated that the flexible AuNPs/PANI/CC integrated electrode possessed the ability to electrochemically catalyze the oxidation of glucose and accordingly a flexible nonenzymatic electrochemical glucose sensor was proposed. After the flexible AuNPs/PANI/CC integrated electrode was bent for 300 times, its electrochemical response was not changed obviously. The flexible nonenzymatic glucose sensor showed a linear range from 10.26 mu M to 10.0 mM, a sensitivity of 150 mu A cm(-2) mM(-1) and a detection limit of 3.08 mu M (S/N =3), which was close to most nonenzymatic glucose sensors and suitable for most samples. Although the flexible nonenzymatic glucose could only be used in alkaline conditions, like most nonenzymatic sensors, it might be used instead of hard electrodes in some special cases. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.