Facile in-situ preparation of few-layered reduced graphene oxide – niobium pentoxide composite for non-enzymatic glucose monitoring

This paper reports a novel and low cost hydrothermal method for the in-situ preparation of few-layered reduced graphene oxide – niobium pentoxide composite for non-enzymatic detection of glucose. TEM, XRD and Raman spectroscopic results confirmed the successful growth of few-layered two dimensional reduced graphene oxide – spherical niobium-pentoxide nanoparticles based (rGO-Nb2 O5) composite. The as-fabricated rGO-Nb2 O5 sensor exhibited a sensitivity of $3.23 \mu\mathrm{A}$. mM-1 with an excellent linearity (R2=0.994) in the physiological range of blood glucose (1-10 mM). The sensing ability of the composite based sensor towards glucose was explained in terms of forward biased nano Schottky barriers at the rGO-Nb2 O5 interface. This work further can be extended for the non-enzymatic detection of glucose in saliva, tears or urine samples.