Indium-doped mesoporous Bi2S3-based electrochemical interface for highly sensitive detection of Pb(II)

[Display omitted] •A mesoporous In-doped Bi2S3 (IDB) was synthesized in a facile way.•IDB applied as sensing interface exhibited high sensitivity (78.1 μA μM−1) towards Pb(II).•The tentative test towards the complex state of Pb(II) was experimentally implemented.•IDB/GCE showed a great promising on environmental analysis. As a global toxic pollutant, lead (Pb(II)) causes serious risks for living organism and the environment, it is thus of critical importance to explore a facile and efficient sensing protocol for the detection of Pb(II). Herein, we proposed the flower-like In-doped Bi2S3 (IDB) with mesoporous nanostructure as an electrochemical sensing interface for the Pb(II) detection, which was synthesized via a facile solvothermal method. The fabricated IDB/GCE exhibited a high sensitivity of 78.1 μA·μM−1 and a satisfied detection limit (LOD) as 0.017 μΜ with robust stability and remarkable anti-interference capability. Plausible mechanism of electrochemical sensing of Pb(II) was proposed based on electrochemical and characterization results, where the mesoporous IDB could provide numerous electrocatalytic active sites, and efficiently accumulate target Pb(II) onto the electrode surface, leading to the improved electrochemical performance. Besides, the complex state of Pb(II) was analyzed with IDB/GCE, and a tentative reference on the detection of complex state of Pb(II) was achieved with the favorable results. Furthermore, the fabricated IDB/GCE could be applied for the analysis of Pb(II) in real water sample with high reliability.