A room-temperature chemical route to homogeneous core–shell Cu2O structures and their application in biosensors

Abstract

Homogeneous core–shell structured cuprous oxide (Cu₂O) is fabricated through a facile reduction reaction at room temperature (20–25 °C). Ostwald ripening processes are proposed to explain the growth mechanism of the homogeneous Cu₂O core–shell structure. The electrochemical impedance spectrum (EIS), cyclic voltammetry (CV) and differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) show that the modified electrodes with the obtained homogeneous core–shell Cu₂O exhibit high efficiency and convenience toward the detection of dopamine (DA). The anodic peak current increases linearly with the concentration of dopamine in the range of 3.0 × 10⁻⁷ to 5 × 10⁻⁴ M. The detection limit has been estimated to be 1.0 × 10⁻⁷ M. The high sensitivity of the determination of dopamine by using the modified electrode implies that homogeneous core–shell Cu₂O may be of great potential in the field of biosensors.