Template-Free Controllable Electrochemical Synthesis of Hierarchical Flower-Like Platinum Nanoparticles/Nitrogen Doped Helical Carbon Nanotubes for Label-Free Biosensing of Bovine Serum Albumin.

Novel hierarchical flower-like platinum nanoparticles (PtNFs) were prepared on helical carbon nanotubes (HCNT) by electrodeposition method in a controllable way. In specific, no template and surfactant were used for this convenient and green preparation of PtNFs on HCNT. Owing to the unique interacting property with metal ions, dopamine was employed as a localizing, connecting and weak reducing reagent for loading PtNFs on HCNT. Combining with the unique structure of PtNFs and HCNT, the HCNT-PtNFs nanocomposites exhibited high performance of electrochemical biosensing toward bovine serum albumin (BSA). The effects of incubation time of BSA and pH of buffer solution on the detection of BSA were also examined. Under optimal conditions, electrochemical quantification of BSA was realized using the developed biosensor which presented a wide linear range, low detection limit, high sensitivity and good selectivity. The superior catalytic activity and selectivity make the developed HCNT-PtNFs as a promising nanomaterial in the area of electrochemical biosensing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]