Synthesis of polyethylene glycol (PEG) assisted tungsten oxide (WO3) nanoparticles for l-dopa bio-sensing applications

Nanocrystalline tungsten oxides (WO3−δ) are currently receiving a lot of attention because of their interesting electrical, magnetic, optical and mechanical properties. In this report, we present the synthesis of PEG assisted tungsten oxide (WO3) nanoparticles by simple household microwave irradiation (2.45 GHz) method. The samples were characterized using powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermal analysis (TG/DTA), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), UV-visible diffusion reflectance spectroscopy (UV-VIS-DRS), cyclic voltammetry and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. Powder XRD results revealed that both the samples prepared with and without surfactant crystallize in the orthorhombic structure corresponding to WO3·H2O phase. Subsequent annealing under identical conditions (600 °C/air/6 h) led to significantly different products i.e. monoclinic W17O47 from surfactant free sample and orthorhombic WO3 from PEG assisted sample. Blue emission was observed through UV-VIS-DRS with blue shift and the band gap energy was estimated as 2.7 and 3.28 eV for PEG assisted as prepared (WO3·H2O) and annealed samples (WO3) respectively. Electrochemical measurements have been performed on all the samples deposited on the surface of glassy carbon (GC) electrode which showed high sensitivity and good selectivity for PEG assisted sample (WO3·H2O) for the direct detection of l-dopa.