Facile fabrication of nanoporous PdFe alloy for nonenzymatic electrochemical sensing of hydrogen peroxide and glucose

Nanoporous (NP) PdFe alloy is easily fabricated through one step mild dealloying of PdFeAl ternary source alloy in NaOH solution. Electron microscopy characterization demonstrates that selectively dissolving Al from PdFeAl alloy generates three-dimensional bicontinuous nanospongy architecture with the typical ligament size around 5 nm. Electrochemical measurements show that the NP-PdFe alloy exhibits the superior electrocatalytic activity and durability towards hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) detection compared with NP-Pd and commercial Pd/C catalysts. In addition, NP-PdFe performs high sensing performance towards H₂O₂ in a wide linear range from 0.5 to 6 mM with a low detection limit of 2.1 μM. This nanoporous structure also can sensitively detect glucose over a wide concentration range (1–32 mM) with a low detection limit of 1.6 μM and high resistance against chloride ions. Along with these attractive features, the as-made NP-PdFe alloy also has a good anti-interference towards ascorbic acid, uric acid, and dopamine.