Cost-effective synthesis of three-dimensional nitrogen-doped nanostructured carbons with hierarchical architectures from the biomass of sea-tangle for the amperometric determination of ascorbic acid

In this work, the three-dimensional nitrogen-doped nanostructured carbons with hierarchical architectures (3D-NNCsHAs) with high density of defective sites, high surface area and pluralities of pore size distributions was prepared through the pyrolysis of sea-tangle (Laminaria japonica), an inexpensive, eco-friendly and abundant precursor. Benefitting from their structural uniqueness, a selective and sensitive ascorbic acid (AA) sensor based on 3D-NNCsHAs was developed. Compared to the glassy carbon electrode (GCE) and the carbon nanotubes modified GCE (CNTs/GCE), the 3D-NNCsHAs modified GCE (3D-NNCsHAs/GCE) presents higher performance towards the electrocatalysis and detection of AA, such as lower detection limit (1 mu M), wider linear range (10-4410 mu M) and lower electrooxidation peak potential ( 0.02V vs. Ag/AgCl). In addition, 3D-NNCsHAs/GCE also exhibits high anti-interference and anti-fouling abilities for AA detection. Particularly, the fabricated 3D-NNCsHAs/GCE is able to determine AA in real samples and the results acquired are satisfactory. Therefore, the 3D-NNCsHAs can be considered as a kind of novel electrode nanomaterial for the fabrication of selective and sensitive AA sensor for the extensive practical applications ranging from food analysis, to pharmaceutical industry and clinical test. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.