An ultrasensitive photoelectrochemistry sensor for ascorbic acid based on etching perylenediimide modified CoOOH nanosheets

In this work, a neoteric photoelectrochemistry (PEC) sensor on account of perylenediimide (PDI) by coupling with ascorbic acid (AA) responsive decomposition of cobalt oxyhydroxide (CoOOH) nanosheets was developed. PDI is a kind of organic photoelectric material with strong photoelectrochemical properties in aqueous solution. When the surface of the PDI is modified by CoOOH, the photoelectric properties of the PDI could be effectively decreased. However, when AA is present, CoOOH is reduced to Co2+ while the photoelectric properties of PDI are restored. The photoelectric sensor constructed thereby exhibits high selectivity and transient response, and is simple in operation, low in cost and short in time, and provides a novel detection method for small molecule ascorbic acid. In the case of a signal-to-noise ratio of 3, the detection limit is 33.4 nM. This paper opens a new PEC method to detection of AA.