Preparation of porous Cu2O octahedron and its application as L-Tyrosine sensors

Highly uniform porous cuprous oxide (Cu2O) octahedra with an average size of 1 μm were first successfully prepared with high yield by a facile one-step seed-mediated approach, employing cupreous acetate and sodium sulfite as the reactants, and citric acid as the assistant vesicant. The crucial influence of citric acid and poly(vinylpyrrolidone) (PVP) on the morphology of porous octahedron in the synthesis has also been discussed. Electrochemical impendance spectrum (EIS) and cyclic voltammetry (CV) shows that the porous cuprous oxide octahedra have a stronger ability to promote electron transfer than both the Cu2O octahedral and the Cu2O nanoparticles resulting from such porous nanostructures, which potentially not only have high surface area but also can supply more efficient transport passage for the probe molecules to get to the active sites. The porous Cu2O octahedra were successfully used to modify the gold electrode to detect L-Tyrosine (Tyr) with differential pulse voltammetry (DPV). The result shows that the porous cuprous oxide octahedra may be of great potential as L-Tyrosine electrochemical sensor.