A High‐Performance Phosphate Potentiometric Sensor Based on Cobalt Nanoparticles Electroplated on Hierarchically Porous Laser‐Induced Graphene

Abstract

Phosphate is an important fertilizer in agriculture and electrochemical sensors based on cobalt (Co) are promising for measurement of phosphate. The deposition of Co onto conductive substrates to form a nano/microstructured Co layer with rich active sites is a typical strategy to improve detection performances. However, the widely used substrates show smooth surfaces, which cannot provide extra active sites. Herein, a high‐performance phosphate sensor is fabricated by generating Co nanoparticles (NPs) on a hierarchically porous laser‐induced graphene (LIG) matrix with a large surface area. Specifically, a Co layer is first electroplated on the LIG matrix. Nevertheless, the pores of LIG will be blocked by the dense Co layer so the performances of the fabricated LIG‐Co sensor exhibit limited enhancements. Therefore, a “nearly all etching (NAE)” technique is developed to transform the dense Co layer to dispersive Co NPs and re‐expose the pores of LIG, both increasing the active sites. Compared to the LIG‐Co sensor, the LIG‐Co NP sensor displays overall superiority. The response time, sensitivity, and linearity are enhanced from ≈60 to ≈10 s, from 0.012 to 0.069 V dec−1, and from 0.973 to 0.998, respectively. The LIG‐Co NP sensor also shows a decent anti‐interference capability.