Facile green synthesis of graphene–titanium nitride hybrid nanostructure for the simultaneous determination of acetaminophen and 4-aminophenol

We demonstrate herein a newly developed electrochemical sensor base on the reduced graphene oxide–titanium nitride (RGO–TiN) nanohybrid . The nanohybrid was prepared by mixing the TiN nanoparticles and GO dispersion and then treating with glucose and Zn foils. The morphologies and microstructures of the as-prepared nanohybrid were characterized by UV–vis absorption spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy and Raman spectroscopy. The as-prepared RGO–TiN nanohybrid exhibited excellent electrocatalytic activity toward the simultaneous detection of acetaminophen (ACOP) and 4-aminophenol (4-AP). As a result, the linear detection ranges were 0.06–660   μM for ACOP and 0.05–520   μM for 4-AP, respectively, with the low detection limits of 0.02   μM for ACOP and 0.013   μM for 4-AP. Based on the excellent performance, it was demonstrated that the prepared RGO–TiN nanohybrid was a promising candidate for advanced electrode material in electrochemical sensing field and the as-prepared RGO–TiN nanohybrid may find more applications for the detection of various analytes.