growth of self-supported CuO nanorods from Cu-MOFs for glucose sensing and elucidation of the sensing mechanism

Herein, we present a simple and mild method to in situ prepare CuO nanostructures for non-enzymatic glucose sensing. A Cu-metal organic framework (Cu-MOF) precursor was first directly grown on a pencil lead electrode with 3D graphene-like surfaces (EPLE) and then in situ transformed into CuO nanorods. The CuO nanorod-modified EPLE (CuO/EPLE) shows high sensitivity (1138.32 A mM 1 cm 2 ), fast response time (1.5 s) and low detection limit (0.11 M) for glucose oxidation. It has been found that NaOH promoted the generation of &z.rad;OH groups and Cu( iii ) on the CuO surface, which then facilitated the electrochemical oxidation of glucose. Signals characteristic of hydroxyl and carbon-centered radical adducts were detected by EPR. Furthermore, the CuO/EPLE sensor also shows good accuracy in glucose determination in human serum samples. Self-supported CuO nanorods converted from Cu-MOFs achieved accurate detection of glucose in serum with sensing mechanism elucidation.