Hydrothermal and plasma nitrided electrospun carbon nanofibers for amperometric sensing of hydrogen peroxide.

Nitrogen-doped carbon nanofibers (CNFs) were prepared by an electrospinning method, this followed by a hydrothermal reaction or nitrogen plasma treatment to obtain electrode for non-enzymatic amperometric sensing of H2O2. The hydrothermally treated electrode performs better. Its electrochemical surface is 3.7 × 10-3 mA cm-2, which is larger than that of a nitrogen plasma treated electrode (8.9 × 10-4) or a non-doped CNF (2.45 × 10-4 mA cm-2). The hydrothermally treated CNF with rough surface and a complex profile with doped N has a higher sensitivity (357 μA∙mM-1∙cm-2), a lower detection limit (0.62 μM), and a wider linear range (0.01-0.71 mM) than N-CNFP at a working potential of -0.4 V (vs. Ag/AgCl). The electrode gave high recoveries when applied to the analysis of milk samples spiked with H2O2. Graphical abstract Nitrogen-doped carbon nanofibers prepared by an electrospinning method followed by a hydrothermal reaction (N-CNFht) or nitrogen plasma treatment (N-CNFP) are directly used as non-enzymatic amperometric H2O2 sensors.