Heteroatom-doped carbon nanofilm embedded in highly ordered TiO2 nanotube arrays by thermal nitriding with enhanced electrochemical activity

Abstract We presented a facile strategy to fabricate highly ordered one-dimensional nitrogen-doped carbon nanofilm embedded in TiO2 nanotube arrays (N–C/TiO2 NTAs) by catalyst-free carbonization on the template of anodized TiO2 NTAs and thermal nitriding. The N–C/TiO2 NTAs exhibit an ideal Nernst behavior towards [Fe(CN)6]3-/4- redox couple with the heterogeneous charge transfer rate constants greater than 0.5 cm/s, indicating an extremely high electrochemical activity. Simultaneous determination of ascorbic acid and uric acid has been demonstrated with the linear ranges of 100–3000 μM, and 1.0–150 μM, respectively and detection limits (S/N = 3) of 8.0 μM, and 0.10 μM, respectively.