Development of selective and sensitive bicarbonate chemical sensor based on wet-chemically prepared CuO-ZnO nanorods

• Well-crystalline CuO-ZnO NRs were prepared by facile wet-chemical process.
• Selective detection of biocarbonate ions using NRs by reliable I–V technique.
• It displays the highest sensitivity towards bicarbonate ions ever published in the literature.

We have prepared calcined copper oxide doped zinc oxide nanorods (CuO-ZnO NRs) by a facile wet-chemical method using reducing agents in alkaline medium. The doped NRs were totally characterized by UV/vis, FT-IR, X-ray photoelectron, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, X-ray powder diffraction, and field-emission scanning electron microscopy. The NRs were deposited on flat silver electrode (AgE) to result in a sensor that has a fast response to selective bicarbonate in buffer system. Features including high sensitivity, lower-detection limit, reliability, reproducibility, ease of integration, long-term stability, selective, and enhanced electrochemical performances were investigated in detail. The calibration plot is linear (r2 = 0.99) over the large concentration range (1.0 nM to 1.0 mM). The sensitivity and detection limit are calculated as ∼1.667 μA cm−2 μM−2 and 0.89 ± 0.02 nM (at a signal-to-noise-ratio, SNR of 3) respectively. Finally, the efficiency of the proposed chemi-sensors can be applied and effectively utilized for the detection of bicarbonate in various environmental real water samples with acceptable and reasonable results.

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