Porous Co nanobeads/rGO nanocomposites derived from rGO/Co-metal organic frameworks for glucose sensing

A novel and sensitive nonenzymatic glucose sensor with 3D hierarchical superstructures is developed based on rGO and porous Co nanobeads through a simple MOFs-directed method. The porous and hierarchical superstructures, good electrical conductivity and large specific surface area of the resulted Co nanobeads/rGO nanocomposites eventually contributed to the good performance of the resulted sensor towards the detection of glucose. •Porous Co nanobeads/rGO nanocomposites are fabricated based on MOFs-templated method.•The Co nanobeads/rGO nanocomposites showed good electrocatalytic activity for glucose.•The Co nanobeads/rGO sensor exhibited good performance for nonenzymatic glucose detection.•The porous superstructures, good electrical conductivity and large specific surface area of the Co nanobeads/rGO nanocomposites contributed to the good performance of the sensor. Metal or metal oxides/graphene nanocomposites with porous structures have become one of the most promising functional materials in sensor, catalysis, energy conversion, etc. In this work, novel porous Co nanobeads/reduced graphene oxide (rGO) nanocomposites are fabricated based on metal-organic frameworks (MOFs)-templated method. In this strategy, benzoic acid groups are initially grafted on rGO via CC bond to form benzoic acid-functionalized rGO (BFrGO), then the BFrGO/CoMOFs is constructed by alternately immersing BFrGO in Co2+ and 1,3,5-benzentricarboxylic acid solution based on a step-by-step route. The novel porous Co nanobeads/rGO nanocomposites are fabricated by pyrolyzing the corresponding BFrGO/CoMOFs. Based on the as-formed Co nanobeads/rGO nanocomposites, a novel nonenzymatic glucose sensor is developed. The porous and hierarchical superstructures, good electrical conductivity and large specific surface area of Co nanobeads/rGO nanocomposites eventually contributed to the good performance of the resulted sensor towards the detection of glucose. The proposed preparation method of Co nanobeads/rGO nanocomposites is simple and might open up a new way for hierarchical superstructures preparation.