Porous hollow carbon nanospheres as a novel sensing platform for sensitive detection of nitrite in pickle directly

Abstract Excessive uptake of nitrite will damage the human health. Hence, there is a rising requirement to construction a highly sensitive electrochemical sensor for detecting the level of nitrite in food precisely. In this work, an electrochemical nitrite sensor was successfully constructed with the porous hollow carbon nanoparticles as the electrode material. The morphology and structure of the synthesized material were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscope, Brunauer–Emmett–Teller, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Meanwhile, the electrochemical behavior of nitrite was studied by cyclic voltammetry and amperometry ( i  −  t ). As a result, the as-constructed sensor exhibited high electrocatalytic activity, high sensitivity (275.7 µA mM −1  cm −2 ), wider linear range (0.037–6950 μM), and lower limit of detection (10.41 nM) toward nitrite oxidation. Finally, the sensor was successfully applied to the detection of nitrite in pickle directly, indicating its feasibility for practical applications. The results showed that the porous hollow carbon nanospheres hold great prospect in sensitive detection of nitrite. Graphic abstract