Graphite-like Carbon Nitride Nanotube for Electrochemiluminescence Featuring High Efficiency, High Stability, and Ultrasensitive Ion Detection Capability

Bolin Zhao; Yelin Luo; Xiaodan Qu; Qiong Hu; Jinhui Zou; Ying He; Zhenbang Liu; Yuwei Zhang; Yu Bao; Wei Wang; Li Niu

doi:10.1021/acs.jpclett.1c02824

Graphite-like Carbon Nitride Nanotube for Electrochemiluminescence Featuring High Efficiency, High Stability, and Ultrasensitive Ion Detection Capability

J Phys Chem Lett. 2021 Nov 18;12(45):11191-11198. doi: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.1c02824. Epub 2021 Nov 11.

Authors

Bolin Zhao¹, Yelin Luo¹, Xiaodan Qu^{1

2

3}, Qiong Hu¹, Jinhui Zou¹, Ying He¹, Zhenbang Liu¹, Yuwei Zhang¹, Yu Bao¹, Wei Wang¹, Li Niu¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Civil Engineering c/o Center for Advanced Analytical Science, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Guangzhou Key Laboratory of Sensing Materials & Devices, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou 510006, P. R. China.
² State Key Laboratory of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130022, P. R. China.
³ University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China.

PMID: 34761929
DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.1c02824

Abstract

Herein, for the first time, we introduced a novel electrochemiluminescence (ECL) luminophore based on a one-dimensional g-C₃N₄ nanotube using K₂S₂O₈ as the coreactant. The g-C₃N₄ nanotube/K₂S₂O₈ couple displayed very satisfactory ECL performance, i.e., an ECL efficiency (Φ_ECL) of 437% (vs 100% for the Ru(bpy)₃²⁺/K₂S₂O₈ reference) and excellent ECL stability (the relative standard deviation (RSD) = 0.78%). By contrast, Φ_ECL and RSD of the control g-C₃N₄ nanosheet/K₂S₂O₈ couple were merely 196% and 45.34%, respectively. The mechanism study revealed that the g-C₃N₄ nanotube features a large surface area and much lower interfacial impedance in the porous microstructure, which are beneficial for accelerating the charge transfer rate and stabilizing charge/excitons for ECL. Moreover, using the g-C₃N₄ nanotube/K₂S₂O₈ system as a sensing platform, excellent Cu²⁺ detection capability was also achieved. Our work thus triggers a promising g-C₃N₄ nanomaterial system toward ECL application.