Bare and boron-doped cubic silicon carbide nanowires for electrochemical detection of nitrite sensitively

Fabrication of eletrochemical sensors based on wide bandgap compound semiconductors has attracted increasing interest in recent years. Here we report for the first time electrochemical nitrite sensors based on cubic silicon carbide (SiC) nanowires (NWs) with smooth surface and boron-doped cubic SiC NWs with fin-like structure. Multiple techniques including scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) were used to characterize SiC and boron-doped SiC NWs. As for the electrochemical behavior of both SiC NWs electrode, the cyclic voltammetric results show that both SiC electrodes exhibit wide potential window and excellent electrocatalytic activity toward nitrite oxidation. Differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) determination reveals that there exists a good linear relationship between the oxidation peak current and the concentration in the range of 50–15000 μmoL L(−1) (cubic SiC NWs) and 5–8000 μmoL L(−1) (B-doped cubic SiC NWs) with the detection limitation of 5 and 0.5 μmoL L(−1) respectively. Compared with previously reported results, both as-prepared nitrite sensors exhibit wider linear response range with comparable high sensitivity, high stability and reproducibility.