A highly sensitive electrochemical sensor for Cd(II) based on protic salt derived nitrogen and sulfur co-doped porous carbon

Xingxing Wu; Shucheng Wu; Yingchun Li; Han Chen; Qunhui Yuan; Wei Gan

doi:10.1016/j.aca.2018.09.030

A highly sensitive electrochemical sensor for Cd(II) based on protic salt derived nitrogen and sulfur co-doped porous carbon

Anal Chim Acta. 2019 Jan 10:1046:115-122. doi: 10.1016/j.aca.2018.09.030. Epub 2018 Sep 15.

Authors

Xingxing Wu¹, Shucheng Wu¹, Yingchun Li², Han Chen¹, Qunhui Yuan³, Wei Gan⁴

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Advanced Welding and Joining, and School of Materials Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology (Shenzhen), Shenzhen, 518055, China.
² School of Sciences, Harbin Institute of Technology (Shenzhen), Shenzhen, 518055, China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Advanced Welding and Joining, and School of Materials Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology (Shenzhen), Shenzhen, 518055, China. Electronic address: yuanqunhui@hit.edu.cn.
⁴ School of Sciences, Harbin Institute of Technology (Shenzhen), Shenzhen, 518055, China. Electronic address: ganwei@hit.edu.cn.

PMID: 30482288
DOI: 10.1016/j.aca.2018.09.030

Abstract

Lately, an "all-in-one" strategy via direct pyrolysis of protic salt has attracted great attention in the preparation of hetero-doped porous carbons due to its distinctive simplicity. However, protic salt derived carbons usually process large grain sizes thus hamper their applications. Herein, a protic salt derived N, S co-doped porous carbon (N, S-PC) with improved porosity was synthesized by nanocasting and carbonization of protic salt. In the nanocasting silica sphere was used as auxiliary template and an easily obtained protic salt ([pPDA][nHSO₄]) was served as C, N and S sources. The obtained N, S-PC contains rich N, S contents and hierarchical textural porosity, thus favors the electrochemical detection of toxic cadmium ions. The N, S-PC based sensor shows excellent sensitivity and selectivity for Cd(II) versus other metals, with a low detection limit of 0.1 μg L^-1 (S/N = 3) over a wide concentration range of 4-80 μg L^-1. Applications of the N, S-PC based sensor for Cd(II) assay in tap water samples achieved results with good recoveries, indicating that the N, S-PC based electrode is promising in real sample analysis.

Keywords: Cadmium; Electrochemical sensor; Nitrogen and sulfur dopants; Protic salt derived carbon.