Oxygenated functional group-engaged electroless deposition of ligand-free silver nanoparticles on porous carbon for efficient electrochemical non-enzymatic HO detection

The construction of metal-carbon nanostructures with enhanced performances using traditional methods, such as pyrolysis, photolysis, impregnation-reduction, etc ., generally requires additional energy input, reducing agents and capping ligands, which inevitably increase the manufacturing cost and environmental pollution. Herein, a novel one-step substrate-induced electroless deposition (SIED) strategy is developed to synthesize ligand-free Ag NPs supported on porous carbon (PC) (Ag/PC). The PC matrix enriched with oxygenated functional groups has a low work function and thus a low redox potential compared to that of Ag + ions, which induces the auto-reduction of Ag + ions to Ag NPs. The as-synthesized Ag/PC-6 modified electrode can be used as an excellent nonenzymatic H 2 O 2 sensor with a broad linear range of 0.001-20 mM, a low detection limit of 0.729 μM (S/N = 3), and a high response sensitivity of 226.9 μA mM −1 cm −2 , outperforming most of the reported sensor materials. Moreover, this electrode can be applied to detect trace amounts of H 2 O 2 in juice and milk samples below the permitted residual level in food packaging and the recovery of H 2 O 2 is 99.6% in blood serum (10%) with good reproducibility. This study proposes an efficient approach for synthesizing a highly active supported Ag electrocatalyst, which shows significant potential for practical applications. Ag/PC synthesized by using a novel one-step substrate-induced electroless deposition (SIED) strategy showed excellent performance for electrochemical non-enzymatic H 2 O 2 detection.