Hot off the press: New Paper in Materials Today Chemistry!

The paper “Composites of porous carbon and copper-based nanoparticles for the electrochemical analysis of chemical oxygen demand“, was published in Materials Today Chemistry.

N&N group member Wenchao Duan and former group member Miquel Torras have co-written this publication under the supervision of Anna Roig, César Fernández-Sánchez (IMB-CNM) and Martí Gich.

Abstract:

The intensive monitoring of water quality enforced by new wastewater regulations calls for the developing of fast and low-cost analytical technologies. Electrochemical sensors are poised to become alternative technologies for the sensitive analysis of environmentally relevant chemicals. A prerequisite for this evolution is engineering analyte-specific electrodes which are easily processed and can be mass-produced. This work studies different routes to prepare composites comprising a porous carbon matrix with Cu or Cu₂O nanoparticles as electrodes to analyze chemical oxygen demand (COD) in wastewaters. The materials were prepared by physical mixing of the two components and one-pot chemical synthesis, characterizing their microstructure, porosity, nanoparticle distribution, and crystallinity. Then, their analytical performance was assessed by measuring glucose as a standard analyte and testing three real samples from a wastewater treatment plant. While all the materials performed well in the COD analysis, in excellent agreement with those obtained by the standard dichromate method, a one-pot synthesis approach stands out for its ease of production and analytical response. This one-step liquid processing is scalable and compatible with the industrial manufacturing of electrochemical sensors of planar configuration by screen-printing or microfabrication techniques.