A highly sensitive non-enzymatic glucose electrochemical sensor based on NiO nanohives

Diabetes is a dangerous chronic disease leading to death. Regular glucose level monitoring in the blood is very important to reduce the risk of diabetes. A lot of methods have been developed to measure the glucose concentration. The non-enzymatic glucose sensor is one of the efficient methods, which has attracted much attention from researchers. In this work, a facile process for the synthesis of NiO nanohives on the surface of nickel foam substrate was reported to apply for the non-enzymatic glucose electrochemical sensing. Morphologies and components of the obtained materials were characterised by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy. FE-SEM images show homogeneous NiO nanohives covering the surface of nickel foam with each cavity diameter of 300-500 nm. Cyclic voltammetry and amperometry were conducted to measure the electrochemical properties of the synthesised NiO/Ni electrodes. The results show that the sensor is highly sensitive (10.08 mA mM(-1) cm(-2)) with a low detection limit (7.25 mu A), which is evaluated highly potential to apply for the non-enzymatic glucose electrochemical sensor.