Sheet-like carbon-nitrogen (CNx)/graphene composites with a high content of nitrogen (x≤0.15) was prepared by the carbonization of polypyrrole (PPy)/reduced-graphene-oxide (rGO) composite at 600-800°C. We used rGO instead of graphene oxide (GO) sheets as a template and a substrate to immobilize PPy since the PPy/GO composite agglomerates easily because of the dehydration of excess oxygen-containing groups on the GO sheets during the drying process. The dried PPy/rGO intermediate and its derived CNx/graphene products retain their high dispersion and loose-powder features. The as-prepared CNx/graphene composites have a total nitrogen content of about 10 at% and their nitrogen state is mainly of pyridinic and graphitic type. CNx/graphene composites exhibit excellent performance for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in terms of electrocatalytic activity, stability and immunity towards methanol crossover and CO poisoning, suggesting their potential as metal-free electrocatalysts for the ORR.
MA YanWenZHANG LingRongLIJuanJuanNI HaiTaoLI MengZHANG JinLeiFENG XiaoMiaoFAN QuLiHU ZhengHUANG Wei
Nitrogen-doped carbon nanotubes (N-CNTs)/polyaniline (PANI) composites are developed as an electrode material for biosensors. The morphology, composition, and optical properties of the resulting products were characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and ultraviolet-visible absorption spectra (UV-vis). Furthermore, N-CNTs/PANI composite was immobilized on the surface of a glassy carbon electrode (GCE) and applied to construct a sensor. The obtained N-CNTs/PANI-modified GCE showed one pair of redox peaks and high catalytic activity for the oxidation of dopamine (DA) in a neutral environment. Differential pulse voltam-mograms results illustrate that the fabricated DA biosensor has high anti-interference ability towards ascorbic acid (AA). In addition, the fabricated biosensor showed superior performances with two wide linear ranges from 1 to 80 μM and from 1.5 to 3.5 mM and a low detection limit of 0.01 μM.
FENG XiaoMiao* , LI RuiMei , MA YanWen, CHEN RunFeng, MEI QunBo, FAN QuLi & HUANG Wei * Key Laboratory for Organic Electronics & Information Displays (KLOEID)
