Cuprous
oxide (Cu2O) nanomaterials provide a versatile platform
for building nonenzymatic
glucose sensors. In particular, Cu2O nanocubes with controllable
sizes and distributions can be deposited electrochemically on a conductive
graphene strip as a soft substrate under different conditions, including
overpotential, temperature, copper-ion electrolyte concentration,
and deposition time. Graphene provides a promising substrate for sensing
because of its high conductivity, high specific surface area, and
unique thermal and mechanical properties. A more negative overpotential
is found to produce smaller nanocubes with a large number density,
while the deposition temperature could affect the morphology of nanocubes.
The size of the nanocubes increases with increasing copper-ion concentration
and deposition time. Using an optimal condition of −1.0 V vs
Ag/AgCl, 1 mM [Cu2+], and 100 s deposition time at room
temperature, we obtain a near-homogeneous monolayer of Cu2O-shell Cu-core nanocubes, ∼50 nm in size, on a graphene strip
substrate. The Cu2O nanocubes/graphene system is used as
a high-performance sensor with a wide detection range of 0.002–17.1
mM and a high sensitivity appropriate for saliva-range glucose sensing.
It has also been used to test glucose in the real saliva sample with
95% accuracy. This nonenzymatic glucose sensor is considerably better
in performance than other nonenzymatic sensors, including those based
on bare graphene, and graphene sputter-coated with a Cu film, and
conventional enzymatic sensors such as glucose oxidase immobilized
on graphene (with and without Nafion). In addition to being an excellent
catalyst, Cu2O nanocubes have a large specific surface
area and a large amount of active sites. These nanomaterial properties,
along with the use of a high-conductivity substrate like graphene,
make the Cu2O nanocubes/graphene sensor among the best
saliva-range glucose sensors reported to date.