Facile synthesis of novel CuO/Cu2O nanosheets on copper foil for high sensitive nonenzymatic glucose biosensor

Design and synthesis of binder-free electrodes with active nanomaterials on the surface are expected to enhance electrochemical properties. In the work, a novel thin film formed by assembled CuO nanosheets and ultra-thin Cu 2 O film directly adhered on copper foil was obtained by just simply oxidizing the Cu foil using H 2 O 2 . The obtained product on Cu foil consists of a film assembled by CuO/Cu 2 O nanosheets. The ultrathin CuO nanosheets with large surface area provide adequate active sites for the electrocatalysis and the strong binding will promote the electron transfer between active nanomaterials and Cu substrate. The electrochemical performance shows that this novel structure as an electrode exhibits excellent properties for the non-enzyme glucose sensor, with an ultrahigh sensitivity of 1.541   mA   mM −1   cm −2 , a low detection limit of 0.57   μM and the linear range is up to 4   mM. Good stability and high selectivity were also obtained by using CuO/Cu 2 O nanosheets@Cu as a nonenzymatic glucose sensor, and furthermore, the electrode shows powerful reliability for analyzing human serum samples. Therefore, the CuO/Cu 2 O film based on Cu foil binder-free electrode may become a promising nonenzymatic glucose sensor and the work also provides a strategy for the design of electrochemical electrode.