Preparation of nitrogen-doped hollow carbon spheres for sensitive catechol electrochemical sensing

Abstract

In this work, nitrogen-doped hollow carbon spheres (NCs) were prepared by a silica template method using dopamine as a carbon precursor. The as-prepared NCs were used to fabricate a catechol (CC) electrochemical sensor. Nitrogen doping significantly enhances the conductivity of the electrode. Therefore, NCs were successfully used to modify screen-printed electrodes, which exhibited excellent sensing performance. Under the optimized conditions, the prepared electrochemical sensor could linearly detect CC between 0.5 and 300 μM with a low detection limit of 0.14 μM.

Keywords:

• Hollow carbon spheres
• nitrogen doping
• catechol detection
• electrochemical sensor