Conductive printable electrodes tuned by boron-doped nanodiamond foil additives for nitroexplosive detection

An efficient additive manufacturing-based composite material fabrication for electrochemical applications is reported. The composite is composed of commercially available graphene-doped polylactide acid (G-PLA) 3D printouts and surface-functionalized with nanocrystalline boron-doped diamond foil (NDF) additives. The NDFs were synthesized on a tantalum substrate and transferred to the 3D-printout surface at 200 °C. No other electrode activation treatment was necessary. Different configurations of low- and heavy-boron doping NDFs were evaluated. The electrode kinetics was analyzed using electrochemical procedures: cyclic voltammetry and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The quasi-reversible electrochemical process was reported in each studied case. The studies allowed confirmation of the CV peak-to-peak separation of 63 mV and remarkably high heterogeneous electron transfer rate constant reaching 6.1 × 10(−2) cm s(−1) for 10 k ppm [B]/[C] thin NDF fitted topside at the G-PLA electrode. Differential pulse voltammetry was used for effective 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) detection at the studied electrodes with a 87 ppb limit of detection, and wide linearity range between peak current density and the analyte concentration (0.064 to 64 ppm of TNT). The reported electrode kinetic differences originate primarily from the boron-dopant concentration in the diamond and the various contents of the non-diamond carbon phase. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT: [Image: see text] SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00604-022-05371-w.