Melt-quenched vanadium pentoxide-stabilized chitosan nanohybrids for efficient hydrazine detection

Abstract

Nanocrystalline low-dimensional nanostructured vanadium pentoxide (n-V2O5) nanoparticles were synthesized using a hydrothermal and melt-quenching approach without using any reducing agent, acids/bases, and hazardous solvents. Further, the synthesized V2O5 nanoparticles were successfully dispersed in a chitosan (CS) solution for fabricating an organic-inorganic nanohybrid matrix for the electrocatalytic determination of hydrazine to avoid human exposure. Furthermore, this study was supported by various sophisticated tools to characterize the synthesized V2O5 and V2O5-CS films, namely UV-Vis, PL, FTIR, XRD, SEM, AFM, TEM, and EDX. The V2O5-CS nanohybrid showed a substantial sensing strength when deposited onto an indium-tin-oxide (ITO)-coated glass substrate without ultrasonication and studied using amperometry and cyclic voltammetry techniques. Thus, the electrochemical responses against various hydrazine concentrations obtained from the fabricated V2O5-CS/ITO electrode demonstrated high sensitivity, a low detection limit, a quick response time, and a wide linear range of 50.48 μA μM-1 cm-2, 0.084 mM, 20 seconds, and 2-22 mM at a 50 mV scan rate, respectively. Hence, the utilization of V2O5-CS-based inorganic-organic nanohybrid materials fabricates a robust sensing system and a favorable sensing platform with wide applications towards the development of electrochemical sensor devices. © 2021 The Royal Society of Chemistry.