Fabrication of core-shell Pt-Ni(OH)2 nanosheets on Ni foam and investigation on its detection performance of ammonia-nitrogen in lake and sea water

Ammonia-nitrogen is one potential toxic pollutant. Detecting ammonia-nitrogen is meaningful for environment, food and human health. Therefore, designing and developing high-performance sensors is important to detect ammonia-nitrogen. An electrochemical sensor for ammonia-nitrogen detection was obtained based on core-shell Pt-Ni(OH)(2) nanosheets on Ni foam (Pt-Ni(OH)(2)-NF) as a sensing electrode. The Pt-Ni(OH)(2)-NF sensor exhibited high sensitivity and low limit of detection due to the high catalytic activity of Pt towards ammonia oxidation reaction, large specific surface area and high-quality ohmic contact among Pt (outer layer), beta-Ni(OH)(2) (middle layer) and Ni (bottom layer). Furthermore, the representative Pt-Ni(OH)(2)-NF sensor was applied successfully to detect ammonia-nitrogen in lake and sea water, achieving accepted recoveries. Therefore, this Pt-Ni(OH)(2)-NF sensor presented great potential for practical application.