Nonenzymatic glucose sensing by CuO nanoparticles decorated nitrogen-doped graphene aerogel

•NGA-CuO is prepared by a facile solvothermal method for nonenzymatic glucose sensing.•Synergistic effect of CuO and NGA contribute to the catalytic activity of the sensor.•The doped N atoms increase the conductivity and enhance surface chemical activity.•The NGA-CuO exhibits high sensitivity, selectivity, reproducibility and stability.•The NGA-CuO sensor is applied for routine glucose analysis in human serum samples.

CuO nanoparticles decorated N-doped graphene aerogel (NGA-CuO) was facilely synthesized via a mild hydrothermal method followed by freeze-drying and calcination, which was characterized by TEM, FT-IR, XPS, XRD and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The obtained NGA-CuO was used for the construction of a nonenzymatic sensing platform for glucose, exhibiting wide linear range, low detection limit, high sensitivity, reproducibility, selectivity and stability. The excellent analytical performances of the NGA-CuO based glucose sensor might be attributed to the synergistic effect of CuO nanoparticles and N-doped graphene aerogel (NGA). The practical applications of the proposed sensor was verified by determining glucose concentrations in five human serum samples, and the obtained results were quite comparable to those measured on the standard clinical instrument.

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