CuO Hollow Cubic Caves Wrapped with Biogenic N-Rich Graphitic C for Simultaneous Monitoring of Uric Acid and Xanthine

Herein, we synthesized hollow cubic caves of CuO (HC) and wrapped it with N-rich graphitic C (NC), derived from a novel biogenic mixture composed of dopamine (DA) and purine. The synthesized NC wrapped HC (NC@HC) sensor shows enhanced electrocatalytic efficacy compared to unwrapped CuO with shapes including HC, sponge (SP), cabbage (CB), and solid icy cubes (SC). The shape and composition of synthesized materials were confirmed through field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), whereas interfacial surface energy was calculated through contact angle measurement. The designed NC@HC sensor shows a remarkable response toward the simultaneous detection of uric acid (UA) and xanthine (Xn) with detection limits of 0.017 ± 0.001 (S/N of 3) and 0.004 ± 0.001 μM (S/N of 3), respectively. In addition, this platform was successfully applied to monitor UA from the gout patient serum. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on using such novel NC@HC materials for the simultaneous monitoring of UA and Xn.