Nitrogen-doped hollow carbon nanospheres wrapped with MoS2 nanosheets for simultaneous electrochemical determination of acetaminophen and 4-aminophenol

Since acetaminophen (ACAP) and 4-aminophenol (4-AP, the degradation product from ACAP) have different properties and toxicities, the simultaneous electrochemical determination of ACAP and 4-AP is very important. In this work, nitrogen-doped hollow carbon spheres wrapped with MoS 2 nanosheets (MoS 2 @NHCSs) novel hybrids were synthesized via a simple step-by-step method and consecutively the obtained MoS 2 @NHCSs was successfully used to construct a reliable electrochemical sensor for simultaneously detecting acetaminophen (ACAP) and 4-aminophenol (4-AP). Owing to the synergetic properties of each component in MoS 2 @NHCSs nanohybrids (MoS 2 has highly catalytic activity and can offer many active sites; NHCSs can impede the aggregation tendency and enhance the effective surface area of MoS 2 as well as increasing the conductivity of the nanohybrids), the experimental results demonstrated that the electrochemical responses of both 4-AP and ACAP at MoS 2 @NHCSs modified electrode are much better than those at NHCSs or MoS 2 modified electrodes. Importantly, the MoS 2 @NHCSs nanohybrids can show excellent electrochemical sensing performance for the sensitive and selective as well as simultaneous determination of ACAP and 4-AP. After optimizing various conditions, the proposed MoS 2 @NHCSs-based sensor has wide linear range and low detection limit for ACAP and 4-AP analysis.