A room-temperature chemical route to homogeneous core-shell Cu2O structures and their application in biosensors

Homogeneous core-shell structured cuprous oxide (Cu2O) is fabricated through a facile reduction reaction at room temperature (20-25 degrees C). Ostwald ripening processes are proposed to explain the growth mechanism of the homogeneous Cu2O core-shell structure. The electrochemical impedance spectrum (EIS), cyclic voltammetry (CV) and differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) show that the modified electrodes with the obtained homogeneous core-shell Cu2O exhibit high efficiency and convenience toward the detection of dopamine (DA). The anodic peak current increases linearly with the concentration of dopamine in the range of 3.0 x 10(-7) to 5 x 10(-4) M. The detection limit has been estimated to be 1.0 x 10(-7) M. The high sensitivity of the determination of dopamine by using the modified electrode implies that homogeneous core-shell Cu2O may be of great potential in the field of biosensors.