In situ growth of CoFe-prussian blue analog nanospheres on ferrocene-functionalized ultrathin layered Ti3C2Tx MXene frameworks for efficient detection of xanthine

[Display omitted] •A xanthine sensor was developed by growing CoFe-PBA in situ on Fc-Ti3C2Tx.•The sensor shows unique abundant heteroatom-functionalized multiple-layers structure.•Response current was greatly improved due to unique structure and synergistic effect.•The sensor exhibited wide linear range, low detection limit and high stability. A funky electrochemical sensor for xanthine catching was proposed by growing CoFe-Prussian blue analogs (CoFe-PBA) in situ on ferrocene functionalized Ti3C2Tx MXene (Fc-Ti3C2Tx), denoted as CoFe-PBA/Fc-Ti3C2Tx. In this sensor, introduction of unique thin-layer structure Ti3C2Tx MXene as the interlayer spacers to accommodate ferrocene and CoFe-PBA prevented the restacking of MXene and CoFe-PBA, meanwhile gained higher conductivity. The CoFe-PBA/Fc-Ti3C2Tx was observed by SEM and TEM to possess abundant heteroatom-functionalized multiple-layers structure, and it was therefore endowed with a faster electron transfer rate and a greater electrochemically active surface area. Furthermore, the sensor was investigated using differential pulse voltammetr (DPV) and superiorelectrochemical sensing performance for xanthine detection was achieved with rather wide linear range (3 × 10−8 to 1.007 × 10−3 M), a remarkably low detection limit (0.002 μM), and superior stability. The recovery rate of real sample analysis was acceptable, demonstrating the viability of using this electrochemical sensor in real applications.