Département de chimie moléculaire

The electrochemical detection of hydrogen peroxide, H2O2, and hydrazine, N2H4, is of considerable interest because of the serious health risks associated with these compounds. The unique zeolite structure of Prussian blue, Fe4[Fe(CN)6]3, endows it with excellent catalytic activity towards these small molecules, but its immobilisation on suitable support materials is limited by its solubility at neutral and basic pH values. Here we report an electroanalytical sensor for peroxide and hydrazine based on composites of Prussian blue and graphene nano-sheets (GNSs). The latter are fabricated using the liquid-phase exfoliation of graphite. When immobilised on graphene, Prussian blue is shown to exhibit higher sensitivity towards these analytes than a number of commercially available graphitic supports, including edge-plane pyrolytic graphite (EPPG) electrodes. The incorporation of graphene into electode systems could lead to great advances in sensor technology for these and many other species of interest.