Characterization and electrochemical properties of a nickel film/carbon paper electrode prepared by a filtered cathodic vacuum arc technique

Abstract

A nickel film was prepared through plasma deposition of a metal onto a carbon paper (CP) substrate with the filtered cathodic vacuum arc technique. Nickel metal plasma was generated at a current of 90 A and deposited on the CP substrate for 3 seconds, forming the nickel film modified electrode. The morphology image of the nickel film on the substrate surface was characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The existence of the nickel film was verified by energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The results of the water contact angle measurement (WCA) showed that the existence of the nickel film improved the hydrophilicity of the CP. Cyclic voltammetry (CV) was carried out to investigate the electrochemical properties of the Ni/CP electrode. The nickel film provided a good electron conduction pathway and it improved the electron transfer ability of the substrate. It was found that the Ni/CP electrode exhibited good electrocatalytic oxidation behaviour towards glucose. Amperometric responses showed a good linear relationship with glucose concentration in the range from 2 μM to 500 μM with a detection limit of 0.6 μM. Thus this material is expected to have wide potential applications in glucose biosensors.