Cyclodextrin-Graphite Oxide-Carbon Nanotube Composites for Electrochemical Supramolecular Recognition

•Successful synthesis of the free standing α, β, and γ cyclodextrin-graphite oxide-carbon nanotube composite films.•Investigation and comparison of three kinds of the cyclodextrin composites for supramolecular recognition capability.•Highest sensitivity of the γ cyclodextrin-graphite oxide-carbon nanotube composite film compared to the others.

Three different cyclodextrins (α, β, and γCD) are used in a synthesis of free-standing cyclodextrin-graphite oxide-carbon nanotube (CD-GO-CNT) composite films and compared for the electrochemical supramolecular recognition. All composites show very good electrochemical response to three biomolecules (dopamine, ascorbic acid, and thioridazine), and the response of the electrical current is linearly proportional to the concentration of the biomolecules. The γCD-GO-CNT composite gives the best electrochemical supramolecular recognition performance among the other composites (αCD-GO-CNT and βCD-GO-CNT) because of the biggest cavity of γCD (0.95 nm of diameter) compared to αCD (0.57 nm of diameter) and βCD (0.78 nm of diameter). The composite of bigger size CD is more sensitive, resulting that αCD-, βCD-, and γCD-GO-CNT composites are in the order of the increasing sensitivity, to the response, and detail results will be discussed.

Graphical abstractDownload high-res image (100KB)Download full-size image