Hydrangea-like NiTi layered double hydroxide-derived balsawood@Ti3C2Tx-based disposable electrode for convenient residue analysis of carbendazim pesticide

Natural balsawood with quick-growing, light-weight and porous structure expects to be a carrier of self-supporting electrode for convenient pesticide residue analysis in food. In this work, the hydrangea-like Ni Ti layered double hydroxide (NiTi-LDH) is in-situ synthesized on the balsawood@few-layer Ti 3 C 2 T x nanosheets. The pyrolysis of such precursor leads to the carbonized balsawood@Ti 3 C 2 T x supported pompon-like Ni nanoparticles@N-doped carbon (CW@Ti 3 C 2 T x -NiNPs@NC), which demonstrates the two main structural advantages including the CW@Ti 3 C 2 T x with porous structure as the high-performance substrate and the NC immobilized the high-density distribution of NiNPs as the efficient electrocatalyst. These extraordinary characteristics of CW@Ti 3 C 2 T x -NiNPs@NC contribute to the outstanding electrochemical behaviors for detecting the low-concentration carbendazim (CBZ) pesticide, resulting in 0.36 nM of detection limit and the two-stage linear detection ranges including 1–250 nM and 0.25–20.00 μM. More importantly, such CW@Ti 3 C 2 T x -NiNPs@NC with free-cutting can be directly utilized as the quickly replaceable working electrode to create a prototype of portable sensor with the self-designed electronic system. Furthermore, a rapid sampling process matched such portable electrochemical sensor is proposed for the quick detection of residual CBZ on the surfaces of vegetables and fruits. Our research proposes a method to construct the high-performance self-supporting electrode on the basis of natural balsawood@Ti 3 C 2 T x nanosheets for electrochemical sensing.