Platinum nanoparticles decorated carbon nanotubes for highly sensitive 2-nitrophenol chemical sensor

Herein, we report the successful preparation and characterization of platinum nanoparticles decorated carbon nanotubes. The Pt nanoparticles were deposited on the surfaces of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) using RF magnetron sputtering technique under inert gas atmosphere. The prepared Pt nanoparticles decorated CNTs were characterized in detail using several techniques in terms of their morphological, structural and compositional properties. Further, the Pt-decorated CNT nanocomposites were used as efficient redox mediators for the fabrication of 2-nitrophenol chemical sensor. The fabricated 2-nitrophenol chemical sensor exhibited a very high-sensitivity of similar to 395.234 mu A mM(-1) cm(-2) and a low detection limit of 2.19 mM. The observed linear dynamic range (LDR) of the fabricated sensor was 0.156-2.5 mM with a regression coefficient of similar to 0.99273. The observed results demonstrate that the Pt nano particles decorated CNTs are efficient electron mediator to fabricate highly sensitive chemical sensors. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd and Techna Group S.r.l. All rights reserved.