Fabrication of nanoporous copper oxide film biosensor with a polymer sphere template and its application to glucose sensing

A nanoporous CuO film biosensor was fabricated on a Cu substrate electrode by the colloidal-crystal polystyrene template technique with the help of potentiostatic plating and potential cyclic scanning. The direct electrocatalytic oxidation of glucose in alkaline medium on nanoparticle CuO film modified electrode has been investigated in detail. When applied to detect glucose, the sensor exhibited a linear response of up to 32 mmol/L of glucose, and a high sensitivity of 3 799 μA·mM-1·cm-2, higher than that of most nonenzymatic glucose sensors reported in the literature. The sensor response time was less than 3 s and the detection limit was 037 μmol/L (at signal/noise=3). This improvement is due to the nanoporous structure and the greatly enhanced effective surface area. In addition, the sensor also performed well for measuring glucose concentrations in human blood serum samples. The results indicate that the nanoporous CuO film modified electrode allows highly sensitive and selective, stable, and fast amperometric sensing of glucose and is thus promising for the further application in nonenzymatic glucose sensors development.