Ag nanoparticles decorated into metal-organic framework (Ag NPs/ZIF-8) for electrochemical sensing of chloride ion

In this work, silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) were decorated into the cavities of ZIF-8 to fabricate a novel Ag NPs/ZIF-8 modified glassy carbon electrode (GCE) for electrochemical sensing of chloride ion. Benefiting from the synergistic properties of ZIF-8 and Ag NPs, the Ag NPs/ZIF-8/GCE showed favorable performance towards chloride ion. For comparison, the electrochemical activity of Ag NPs wrapped by ZIF-8 (Ag NPs@ZIF-8) and Ag NPs coating on ZIF-8 (Ag NPs-on-ZIF-8) were also investigated and it was found that Ag NPs/ZIF-8 possessed the best performance. Some experimental parameters including pH of the supporting electrolyte and scan rate were also investigated. Under optimal conditions, the proposed sensor exhibited excellent stability, reproducibility and selectivity for the determination of chloride ion with a wide linear detection range from 5 to 4000 μmol dm and a low detection limit of 0.61 μmol dm (S/N = 3). The proposed sensor was successfully applied to the determination of chloride ion spiked in human serum. All these results indicated that the developed Ag NPs/ZIF-8/GCE sensor was superior.