The development of a reliable non-enzymatic multi-analyte biosensor is remained a great challenge for biomedical and industrial applications. In this prospective, rationally designed electrode materials having voltage switchable electrocatalytic properties are highly promising. Here, we report vanadium doped ZnO engineered nanostructures (Zn 1−x V x O where 0x0.1) which exhibit voltage switchable electrocatalytic properties for accurate measurements of glucose and hydrogen peroxide. Microstructures and chemical analysis show that the oxygen vacancies in the material can be tuned by controlling the stoichiometric ratios which play key role for voltage dependent measurements of different analytes. The developed Zn 1−x V x O nanostructures exhibit outstanding sensing ability for binary analytes with a high selectivity, low detection limit, thermal stability and long-term stability. The Zn 0.9 V 0.1 O/glassy carbon (GC) electrode shows 3-fold increase in reproducible sensitivity for both glucose (655.24 μA mM −1 cm −2 ) and H 2 O 2 (13309.37 μA mM −1 cm −2 ) as compared to the pristine ZnO/GC electrode. Moreover, the electrode also shows good response for human blood serum and commercially available samples. The results demonstrate that defect engineering is a promising route for the development of cost-effective non-enzymatic multi-analyte sensors for practical applications.
Niobium pentoxide (Nb 2 O 5 ) material is a promising anode for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) due to the outstanding cycle performance and rate capability. However, the relatively low capacity severely limits the comprehensive performance. Generally, nanoscale engineering of the morphology and chemical composition of Nb 2 O 5 anodes is employed to improve electrochemical lithium storage. In this work, we promote the reservable capacity of a sheetlike Nb 2 O 5 anode by designing nanoscale phase interfaces between the nanodomains of T-Nb 2 O 5 , M-Nb 2 O 5 , and H-Nb 2 O 5 phases, which are generated by good control over the calcination of Nb 3 O 7 F precursor at high temperatures. Microstructural and chemical analyses show that the sample calcined at 750 °C (Nb 2 O 5 -750) has optimized structural advantages to efficiently store lithium ions. When evaluated as anodes for LIBs, the Nb 2 O 5 -750 sample shows excellent lithium storage properties. In specific, the Nb 2 O 5 -750 electrode delivers a reversible capacity of 270.4 mAh g −1 at 1C after 200 cycles. At a high rate of 5C, the Nb 2 O 5 -750 electrode has a reversible capacity of 174 mAh g −1 after 800 cycles. This work provides an alternative way to improve the ion storage in the electrodes with intrinsic polymorphic structures.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.