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An environmentally friendly, layer-by-layer assembled electrode for ultrafast electrochemical detection of nitrite in water

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Abstract

The development of sensors for rapid nitrite detection in water is of great significance to human health and environmental protection. In this study, carboxylated cellulose nanocrystals were prepared by oxidizing microcrystalline cellulose with ammonium persulfate. Subsequently, a composite film was successfully prepared by depositing carboxylated nanocrystalline cellulose and poly(diallyldimethyl ammonium chloride) onto a glass carbon electrode using the layer-by-layer assembly method. After electrodepositing poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene), the resulting electrode was utilized as an electrochemical sensor for nitrite detection. The effect of the number of layers of the composite film on electrocatalytic performance towards nitrite was investigated. Under optimal conditions, the sensor exhibited an ultrafast response to nitrite within 0.5 s, which was better than that of most similar sensors reported. Additionally, it had a wide linear range of 0.5–3000 µM and a low detection limit of 0.26 µM. Furthermore, this sensor showed satisfactory recovery between 98.78 and 103.29% for nitrite in real water samples. Our study presents a significant approach towards the development of an environmentally friendly nitrite sensor with an ultrafast response.

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Acknowledgements

Authors were very grateful to Foundation of Guilin University of Technology (Grant No. GUTQDJJ2017108) for the financial supports.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Materials Science and Engineering, Guilin University of Technology, 12 Jiangan Road, Guilin, 541004, People’s Republic of China

    **nle Du, Yuhan Zhang, Mengying Liu, **nyu Tian & Zhenbo Cao

  2. Guangxi Key Laboratory of Optical and Electronic Materials and Devices, Guilin University of Technology, 12 Jiangan Road, Guilin, 541004, People’s Republic of China

    Zhenbo Cao

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XD wrote the original draft and performed experiments. YZ and ML analyzed the data and prepared all the figures. XT collected the literature and ZC guided the whole project, reviewed the manuscript and provided financial support.

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Correspondence to Zhenbo Cao.

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Du, X., Zhang, Y., Liu, M. et al. An environmentally friendly, layer-by-layer assembled electrode for ultrafast electrochemical detection of nitrite in water. J Appl Electrochem 53, 2443–2455 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10800-023-01922-y

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