Bismuth Decorated Honeycomb-Like Carbon Nanofibers: An Active Electrocatalyst for Construction of Sensitive Nitrite Micro-Sensor

Abstract

Existence of carcinogenic nitrite in food has attracted much attentions, however, it is still a challenge to develop nitrite micro-sensor with higher sensitivity and selectivity to enlarge its applications in daily life. Herein, one-dimensional honeycomb-like carbon nanofibers (HCNFs) were synthesized with an electrospun technology, and its specific structure enables the controlling growth and highly dispersed bismuth nanoparticles (Bi NPs) on its surface, which endows the obtained Bi/HCNFs with excellent electrocatalytic activity toward nitrite oxidation. By modifying Bi/HCNFs on screen-printed microelectrode, the constructed Bi/HCNFs microelectrode (Bi/HCNFs-ME) can be used for nitrite detection in one drop of solution, and exhibits higher sensitivity (1269.9 μA μM -1 cm -2 ) in a wide range of 0.1~800 μM with lower detection limit (19 nM). Impressively, the Bi/HCNFs-ME has been successfully used for nitrite detection in food and environment samples, the satisfactory property and recovery indicates its feasibility in further practical applications.

Keywords: micro-sensor, honeycomb-like carbon nanofibers, Bi nanoparticles, nitrite detection