Al-Based porous coordination polymer derived nanoporous carbon for immobilization of glucose oxidase and its application in glucose/O2 biofuel cell and biosensor

Abstract

Herein, we report the first example of using the Al-based porous coordination polymers (Al-PCP) as a template for preparation of nanoporous carbon through a two-step carbonized method. By applying the appropriate carbonized temperature in the first-step carbonization process, both high surface area and large pore volume are realized in the second-step carbonization process even at a high-temperature. The SEM images show that the carbonized Al-PCP before and after HF treatment (PCP) retained mostly crystallite shapes and sponge-like surface morphology. The TEM images of carbonized Al-PCP and PCP clearly exhibited high porosity with a wide range of pore sizes spanning from micro- to macropores. The maximum BET surface area and pore volume were 2773.5 m² g⁻¹ and 1.885 cm³ g⁻¹, respectively. The obtained highly nanoporous carbon PCPs were used to modify a glassy carbon electrode (GCE) based on glucose oxidase (GOx), resulting in efficient direct electron transfer and excellent bio-catalytic performance. In addition, a glucose/O₂ fuel cell constructed using Nafion/GOx/PCP/GCE as the anode and an E-TEK Pt/C modified GCE as the cathode generated a maximum power density of 0.548 mW cm⁻² at 0.41 V. The findings in this work may be helpful for exploiting novel nanoporous carbons derived from metal–organic framework (MOF) by using a two-step carbonization method for the immobilization of enzymes in enzymatic biofuel cells or biosensors.