Nitrogen-doped carbon nanotube/polyaniline composite: Synthesis, characterization, and its application to the detection of dopamine

Nitrogen-doped carbon nanotubes (N-CNTs)/polyaniline (PANI) composites are developed as an electrode material for biosensors. The morphology, composition, and optical properties of the resulting products were characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and ultraviolet-visible absorption spectra (UV-vis). Furthermore, N-CNTs/PANI composite was immobilized on the surface of a glassy carbon electrode (GCE) and applied to construct a sensor. The obtained N-CNTs/PANI-modified GCE showed one pair of redox peaks and high catalytic activity for the oxidation of dopamine (DA) in a neutral environment. Differential pulse voltammograms results illustrate that the fabricated DA biosensor has high anti-interference ability towards ascorbic acid (AA). In addition, the fabricated biosensor showed superior performances with two wide linear ranges from 1 to 80 μM and from 1.5 to 3.5 mM and a low detection limit of 0.01 μM.