A HIGH-PERFORMANCE GLUCOSE BIOSENSOR BASED ON ZNO NANOROD ARRAYS MODIFIED WITH AU NANOPARTICLES

An amperometric glucose biosensor based on vertically aligned ZnO nanorod (NR) arrays modified with Au nanoparticles (NPs) was constructed in a channel-limited way. Au NPs with diameters in the range of 8-10 nm have been successfully synthesized by photoreduction method and were uniformly loaded onto the surface of ZnO NRs that was hydrothermally deposited on the Fluorine doped SnO2 conductive glass (FTO) via electrostatic self-assembly technique. The morphology and structure of Au/ZnO NR arrays were characterized by field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and X-ray photoelectron spectrum analyzer (XPS). The electrocatalytic properties of glucose oxidase (GOD)-immobilized Au/ZnO NR arrays were evaluated by amperometry. Compared with the biosensor based on ZnO NR arrays, the resulting Au/ZnO NR arrays modified biosensor exhibited an expanded linear range from 3 mu M to 3 mM with the detection limit of 30 nM and a smaller Michaelis-Menten constant of 0.7836 mM. All these results suggest that the Au NPs can greatly improve the biosensing properties of ZnO NR arrays and therefore Au/ZnO NR arrays provide a promising material for the biosensor designs and other biological applications.