Phosphorus doped and defects engineered graphene for improved electrochemical sensing: synergistic effect of dopants and defects

Heteroatom-doped graphene materials emerged as promising metal-free catalysts have recently attracted a growing interest in electrochemical sensing applications. However, their catalytic activity and sensing performances still need to be further improved. Herein, we reported the development of unique phosphorus (P)-doped and plasma-etched graphene (denoted as PG-E) as an efficient metal-free electrocatalyst for dopamine (DA) sensing. It was demonstrated that introducing both P-dopants and plasma-engineered defects in graphene could synergistically improve the activity toward electrocatalytic oxidation of DA by increasing the accessible active sites and promoting the electron transport capability. The resulting PG-E modified electrode showed exceptional DA sensing performances with low detection limit, high selectivity and good stability. These results suggested that the synergistic effect of dopants and defects might be an important factor for developing the advanced graphene-based metal-free catalysts for electrochemical sensing.