Facilely electrodeposited coral-like copper micro-/nano-structure arrays with excellent performance in glucose sensing

In this work, a novel copper foil supported coral-like Cu micro-/nano-structure arrays with excellent non-enzymatic glucose sensing performance was successfully fabricated by a facile electrodeposition method. Field emission scanning electron microscopy was applied to characterize the morphology involution of the resulting materials. X-ray diffraction and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy were employed to study the crystalline phase compositions and the surface elemental state of the electrode. The results demonstrated that the open coral-like Cu-based arrays extremely enlarged the surface area of the substrate, which plays an important role in enhancing the electrochemical glucose sensing performance. The sensor exhibited a high sensitivity up to 3826 μA mM⁻¹ cm⁻², a wide linear range from 0.20 μM to 1.90 mM (R² = 0.9934), a low detection limit of 0.04 μM for glucose sensing. In addition, excellent selectivity and good stability were acquired owing to the robust open coral-like arrays. All these results demonstrate that the novel electrode can be a promising candidate choice for practical glucose sensing.