Strain engineered biocompatible h-WO3 nanofibers based highly selective and sensitive chemiresistive platform for detection of Catechol in blood sample

Publication date: March 2020Source: Materials Science and Engineering: C, Volume 108Author(s): Sushmitha Veeralingam, Sushmee BadhulikaAbstractIn this work, we demonstrate a simple, low-cost biocompatible 1D–WO3 electrospun nanofibers based strain-induced high-performance chemiresistive catechol sensor. WO3 nanofibers were synthesized using e-spinning, annealed and drop-casted on to flexible PET substrate. X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) studies confirm the formation of Hexagonal phase-WO3 and Raman spectroscopy proved the presence of O-W-O bending modes. Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) images displayed the random orientation of dense WO3 nanofibers on PET substrate. Hall measurements confirmed the formation of n-type WO3 nanofibers with carrier density of 1019 cm-3. The sensor responded to a broad dynamic range of catechol concentrations from 1 μM to 100 μM with sensitivity of 51.29 μM-1 cm-2 and limit of detection of 0.52 μM which are better than previously reported catechol sensors. Interestingly, upon application of compressive strain to the flexible sensor, a remarkable increase in sensitivity to 88.34 μM-1 cm-2 was observed with further reduction of the limit of detection to 42 nM. Upon subjecting the sensor to strain ranging from 3.14% to 47.6%, an increase in sensitivity to catechol was observed due to the increase in the exposed surface area of interconnected WO3 nanofibers which enhances the active sites for catechol oxidation by...
Source: Materials Science and Engineering: C - Category: Materials Science Source Type: research