Microgalvanic cell-mediated green synthesis of CuO nanocubes with (100) facets for boosting dopamine hydrochloride sensing performance.

Despite numerous efforts have been made on exploring the preparation, properties and application of CuO nanocrystal, there is still a lack of a facile and green synthesis strategy to obtain well-defined CuO nanocubes (NCs). And exploration of the superior low-index lattice plane of CuO in electrochemical sensing is also inadequate. Herein, we proposed a Ni(OH)-mediated in-situ synthetic strategy for the preparation of CuO NCs enclosed by low-index facets with simple procedure, mild temperature and low energy-consumption. The Ni(OH) sites not only facilitated the contact between Cu and the substrate Ni foam (NF), but also can combine with the NF to act as a primary battery to regulate the nucleation and growth rate of CuO (100) facets. Benefiting from the high ratio of exposed electroneutral (100) lattice planes of nanocubes, the CuO NCs formed on Ni(OH)-abundant Ni Foam (CuO NCs/NF) exhibited a wide linear range (3.25-1178.8 μM), a low detection limit (1.86 μM) and a high sensitivity (900 μA mM cm) in dopamine hydrochloride (DAH) electrochemical sensing. This work expects to provide more clues about the relationship between different dominant low-index facets of CuO NCs and electrochemical sensing performance towards DAH, and thereby contributes to the development of functional materials based on CuO nanocrystals with desirable facets.