Electronic/Ionic Engineering Inspired Formation of Carbon-Encapsulated Cu3pse4/Cu2se Heterostructured Hollow Nanosphere for Trace Level Neurochemical Monitoring

Exploring metal phosphorus chalcogenides (MPCs) with controllable structure and identified composition for capable of delivering an efficient and reliable sensor on tracking DA in body fluids is crucially challenging and desirable for biomedical research. Currently, we delicately adopt well-defined solid Cu2O nanospheres as initial template and PDA-derived carbon layer as supported skeleton for producing a 3D hollow Cu3PSe4/Cu2Se@C heterostructure nanospheres, which exhibits enhanced electrochemical sensing properties for catalyzing DA, especially its low detection limit and high sensitivity, as compared to its counterparts of Cu3PSe4/Cu2Se and Cu2Se, while it also equipped with powerful selectivity, stability, reproductivity and repeatability. All the excellent catalytic abilities are profited from, on the one hand, the formation of Cu3PSe4 makes the redistribution of the electrons and lower redox potential, on the other hand, the existence of carbon layer maintains a 3D hollow structure and reinforces electric conductivity. More intriguingly, acceptable accuracy evidenced the high reliability and wide feasibility of our Cu3PSe4/Cu2Se@C sensor for complex biological sample. Thus, future studies will focus on the fabrication of more MPXs compounds as functional electrocatalysts in response to diversified health issues.