ORIGINAL PAPER
Direct electrodeposition of highly ordered gold nanotube arrays
for use in non-enzymatic amperometric sensing of glucose
Taolei Tian
1
& Junping Dong
1,2
& Jiaqiang Xu
1,2
Received: 27 December 2015 /Accepted: 15 March 2016
#
Springer-Verlag Wien 2016
Abstract The authors describe vertically aligned gold nano-
tube arrays (Au-NTAs) and gold nanowire arrays (Au-NWAs)
that were directly grown in alumina oxide templates by gal-
vanostatic deposition. The morphology of the gold arrays can
be controlled by adjusting the pH value of the plating bath.
Scanning electron microscopy shows the nanoarrays to be
highly ordered (with an average length of around 2 μm), and
the opening width of the gold nanotube arrays to be uniform
(with diameters of around 50 nm). The electrocatalytic activ-
ities of the Au-NTAs and Au-NWAs deposited on a glassy
carbon electrode toward glucose oxidation were compared
by cyclic voltammetry and amperometry at pH 7.2. The Au-
NTAs yield higher amperometric currents. The respective glu-
cose sensor, when operated at a working potential of 0.25 V
(vs. SCE), exhibits a linear range that extends from 5 μMto
16.4 mM concentrations of glucose, a sensitivity of
44.2 μAmM
−1
cm
−2
, and a detection limit of 2.1 μM(atan
S/N ratio of 3). The excellent sensing performance is attribut-
ed to the large surface area and the fast electron transfer rate
for the one-dimensional gold nanoarrays.
Keywords Nanoarray
.
Electrocatalysis
.
Electrodeposition
.
Anodic alumina templates
.
Glassy carbon electrode
.
Electrochemicalimpedancespectroscopy
.
Hexacyanoferrate
.
X-ray diffraction
Introduction
One dimensional nanomaterials have been developed to be
a hot research topic in the field of material science, due to
their remarkable electrical, optical and chemical sensing
characteristics [1, 2]. Both hydrothermal method and
template-based method were used to fabricate one-
dimensional nanostructures. Hydrothermal method is usu-
ally applied to synthesize nanowires or nanorods (ZnO,
CuO or NiO) under hydrothermal conditions [3–5]. As for
the template-based strategy, it has been to be an attractive
route for the fabrication of fr ee-standing and well-oriented
metal nanoarrays (nanowire or nanotube) using porous alu-
mina or polycarbonate as template via electrodeposition
technique [6]. Also, the morphology and composition of
nanoarrays can be tuned by controlling the deposition pa-
rameters [7, 8]. In various templates used, the anodic alu-
mina templates reveal desirable advantages, such as a wide
rangeofadjustableporediameters,highdensity,uniform
pore size and good thermal stability [9]. Hence the anodic
alumina templates are widely employed for the growth of
ordered nanoarrays, for example Pt, Au, Cu, Cu oxide, Ni
[6, 10–13]. In the family of these metal nanoarrays, both
platinum and gold are undoubtedly more concerned due to
their outstanding catalytic activity and biocompatibility
[14]. Besides, hollow nanotube arrays are more attractive
than nanowire arrays since they can provide l arger surface
area, more active sites and easier immobilization for en-
zyme [7, 8].
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article
(doi:10.1007/s00604-016-1835-2) contains supplementary material,
which is available to authorized users.
* Junping Dong
jpdong@shu.edu.cn
* Jiaqiang Xu
xujiaqiang@shu.edu.cn
1
NEST Lab, Department of Chemistry, Shanghai University,
Shanghai 200444, China
2
State Key Laboratory of Transducer Technology, Shanghai Institute
of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of
Sciences, Shanghai 200050, China
Microchim Acta
DOI 10.1007/s00604-016-1835-2