Template-assisted electrochemical growth of polypyrrole nanotubes for development of high sensitivity glucose biosensor.

In this paper, we report the growth of polypyrrole (PPy) nanotube arrays using template-assisted electrochemical polymerization to fabricate enzymatic glucose biosensors. The PPy nanotubes were grown on platinum-coated alumina membranes (Anodisc™s). By varying the polymerization time during the potentiostatic electropolymerization, the size/diameter of the PPy nanotubes were controlled, leading to changes in the subsequent enzyme immobilization (via physical adsorption). Enzyme electrode thus fabricated resulted in to the optimum sensitivity of 18.6 mA cm(-2) M(-1), a wide range of linear operation (0.25-20 mM) and the lowest detection limit of 0.25 mM glucose concentration for the biosensor with the polymerization time of 40 s. The effect of polymerization duration on the sensitivity has been explained on the basis of porosity and enzyme-loading capacity of polymerized electrodes.