Fabrication of MnO2/graphene oxide composite nanosheets and their application in hydrazine detection

MnO2/graphene oxide (GO) composite nanosheets have been successfully fabricated by a simple wet-chemical synthetic route. The composition and structure of the resulting MnO2/GO composites were characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), energy dispersive X-ray diffraction (EDX), Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns. The MnO2/GO composite nanosheets exhibited good electrocatalytic behavior in detecting hydrazine at an applied potential of +0.6 V. The sensor showed a good linear dependence on hydrazine concentration in the range of 3 × 10−6 to 1.12 × 10−3 with a sensitivity of 1007 μA mM−1 cm−2. The detection limit is 0.16 μM at the signal-to-noise ratio of 3. Furthermore, the MnO2/GO modified electrode exhibits freedom from interference by other co-existing electroactive species. These results demonstrate that MnO2/GO composites have great potential in the application of hydrazine detection.