Co3O4 nanostructures on flexible carbon cloth for crystal plane effect of nonenzymatic electrocatalysis for glucose

This work accounts the influence of facet effect of Co3O4 nanocrystals towards nonenzymatic electrocatalysis of glucose induced by different crystal planes modified on carbon cloth (CC) electrode. Tuning the molar ratio of precursor compounds during hydrothermal synthesis of Co3O4, followed by thermal decomposition protocols, different crystal structure including nanocubes, nanothorns, nanooctahedrons and nanosheets were obtained with respective {001}, {110}, {111} and {112} facets. The electrochemical results of these different Co3O4 crystals demonstrate that the nanooctahedron with crystal plane of {111} displays the best nonenzymatic electro-catalytic glucose activity with widest linear range (0.5-1000 μM), highest sensitivity (246.8 μA mM−1) and detection limit of 0.012 μM (S/N = 3). Interestingly, the electrocatalytic activity for nonenzymatic electro-catalytic glucose is ranked in the order of {111} > {112} > {110} > {001}.