Amperometric glucose biosensor based on boron-doped carbon nanotubes modified electrode

Doped carbon nanotubes are now extremely attractive and important nanomaterials in bioanalytical applications due to their unique physicochemical properties. In this paper, the boron-doped carbon nanotubes (BCNTs) were used in amperometric biosensors. It has been found that the electrocatalytic activity of the BCNTs modified glassy carbon (GC) electrode toward the oxidation of hydrogen peroxide is much higher than that of the un-doped CNTs modified electrode due to the large amount of edge sites and oxygen-rich groups located at the defective sites induced by boron doping. Glucose oxidase (GOD) was selected as the model enzyme and immobilized on the BCNTs modified glassy carbon electrode by entrapping GOD into poly(o-aminophenol) film. The performance of the sensor was investigated by electrochemical methods. At an optimum potential of +0.60 V and pH 7.0, the biosensor exhibits good characteristics, such as high sensitivity (171.2 nA mM−1), low detection limit (3.6 μM), short response time (within 6 s), satisfactory anti-interference ability and good stability. The apparent Michaelis–Menten constant (Kmapp) is 15.19 mM. The applicability to the whole blood analysis of the enzyme electrode was also evaluated.