Synthesis and application of bismuth ferrite nanosheets supported functionalized carbon nanofiber for enhanced electrochemical detection of toxic organic compound in water samples.

Recently, the multiferroic material has fabulous attention in numerous applications owing to its excellent electronic conductivity, unique mechanical property, and higher electrocatalytic activity, etc. In this paper, we reported that the synthesis of bismuth ferrite (BiFeO3) nanosheets integrated functionalized carbon nanofiber (BiFeO3 NS/F-CNF) nanocomposite using a simple hydrothermal technique. Herein, the structural changes and crystalline property of prepared BiFeO3 NS/F-CNF nanocomposite were characterized using Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), Raman spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). From this detailed structural evolution, the formation of nanosheets like BiFeO3 and its nanocomposite with F-CNF were scrutinized and reported. Furthermore, the as-prepared BiFeO3 NS/F-CNF nanocomposite modified glassy carbon electrode (GCE) was applied for electrochemical detection of catechol (CC). As expected, BiFeO3 NS/F-CNF/GCE shows excellent electrocatalytic activity as well as 3.44 (F-CNF/GCE) and 7.92 (BiFeO3 NS/GCE) fold higher electrochemical redox response for CC sensing. Moreover, the proposed sensor displays a wide linear range from 0.003 to 78.02 µM with a very low detection limit of 0.0015 µM. In addition, we have validated the real-time application of our developed CC sensor in different water samples.