In situ synthesis of hierarchical platinum nanosheets-polyaniline array on carbon cloth for electrochemical detection of ammonia

[Display omitted] •A Pt-PANI-CC electrode was fabricated via in situ electrodeposition method.•An electrochemical ammonia sensor was fabricated based on Pt-PANI−CC electrode.•This sensor showed high sensitivity, great selectivity and good stability.•The hierarchical structure enhanced performances of detecting ammonia. In this work, a self-supported electrode has been designed and fabricated based on carbon cloth-supported polyaniline array and Pt nanosheets (Pt-PANI-CC). PANI array was firstly loaded on the surface of CC via chronoamperometry technique, and then, Pt nanosheets were deposited on the per-grown PANI array through amperometric measurement. The hierarchical structure of Pt-PANI-CC electrode and unique sheet-like Pt nanoparticles offered large specific surface and response centers. The electrochemical sensor based on Pt-PANI-CC electrode has been successfully constructed for detection of ammonia. The experiment results demonstrated that Pt-PANI-CC displayed great catalytic activity for electro-oxidation of ammonia and exhibited acceptable performances for sensing ammonia with low detection limit of 77.2 nM and wide linear range from 0.5 μM to 550 μM. Moreover, the anti-interference ability, reusability, reproducibility and stability of sensor have been investigated and showed great performances. This work provides a promising way for designing self-supported sensing electrode toward a wide electrochemical detection.