Electrochemical preparation of thin-layered molybdenum disulfide-poly(m-aminobenzenesulfonic acid) nanocomposite for TNT detection

Recently, molybdenum disulfide-based nanocomposites have been widely used in electrochemical sensing area. In this paper, molybdenum disulfide-poly(m-aminobenzenesulfonic acid) (MoS2-PABSA) nanocomposite was prepared through a simple electropolymerization procedure for TNT detection. The pre-obtained thin-layered MoS2 nanosheet was adopted as the scaffold in the electropolymerization process and the m-aminobenzenesulfonic acid monomer was effectively electrodeposited on it via cyclic voltammetry. The morphology and electrochemical behaviors of MoS2-PABSA nanocomposite were investigated by scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction and some electrochemical methods. The obtained nanocomposite possesses excellent electrochemical detecting performance, towards aromatic ring compounds, such as 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene, TNT, which have strong pi-pi interaction with the MoS2-PABSA sensing platform. The detailed electrochemical characterization of MoS2-PABSA showed the influence of electropolymerization cycles and pH values on detection of TNT. Under the optimum condition, highly sensitive detection for TNT was realized with the limit of detection of 0.043 ppb (0.187 nmol L-1) and a linear range of 0.1-200 ppb. This research proves that the MoS2-PABSA was a worthy electrochemical sensing platform for further simple and sensitive detection of some other aromatic ring compounds. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.