Synthesis of uniformly dispersed FeTiO nanodisks: a sensitive photoelectrochemical sensor for glucose monitoring in human blood serum.

A novel photoelectrochemical (PEC) sensor was constructed, using FeTiO nanodisks under visible-light irradiation, for the determination of glucose in human blood serum. The uniformly dispersed FeTiO nanodisks were synthesized for the first time by an ion exchange method and subsequent heat treatment. As excellent catalysts, the FeTiO nanodisks can directly catalyze the oxidation of glucose to produce current in the absence of glucose oxidase. Compared with commercial TiO, the FeTiO nanodisks exhibit better activity in the electrocatalytic oxidation of glucose and can generate a photocurrent as a signal for glucose detection. The PEC sensor shows a wide linear range (4 μM-10 mM), a low limit of detection (0.588 μM) and a super sensitivity of 2653 μA mM cm, which are much better than similar configurations reported previously. This PEC sensor has been successfully used to monitor glucose in human blood serum. Moreover, this PEC glucose sensor based on FeTiO nanodisks possesses great potential for application in point-of-care clinical diagnosis.