Fabrication of a PANI/Au nanocomposite modified nanoelectrode for sensitive dopamine nanosensor design

Polyaniline/Au nanocomposite modified nanoelectrodes based dopamine nanosensors have been developed. The polyaniline/Au nanocomposite film was deposited at the exposed end of the nanoelectrode tip by a surface-graft polymerization method to fabricate a desired modified nanoelectrode. With this modified method, the nanocomposites firmly adhered on the electrode surface and the modified nanoelectrode still had a sharp tip, which was proved by the scanning electron microscope. The electrochemical measurement shows the polyaniline/Au nanocomposite modified film has a good and stable redox activity in neutral solution. The modified nanoelectrode exhibits the excellent electrocatalytic activity towards the oxidations of ascorbic acid and dopamine in phosphate buffer solution. The separation of anodic peak potential of dopamine and ascorbic acid reaches 250 mV. Differential pulse voltammograms results illustrate that dopamine can be selectively determined in the presence of thousands times higher concentration of ascorbic acid with a wide linear range from 200 to 0.3 μM and the detection limit is 0.1 μM. This study provides a simple method for the construction of dopamine nanosensors that have a good sensitivity, wide linear range and stable response. The nanosensors are hopeful to be applied to the detection of dopamine in vivo.