High-performance electrochemical sensing platform based on sodium alginate-derived 3D hierarchically porous carbon for simultaneous determination of dihydroxybenzene isomers.

Three-dimensional hierarchically porous carbon (denoted as SA-900) with a microporous, mesoporous and macroporous structure was facilely fabricated via direct carbonization of sodium alginate. SA-900 was fully characterized by N adsorption-desorption, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy to confirm its structure. SA-900 was coated onto a glassy carbon electrode surface to construct an ultrasensitive electrochemical sensing platform (SA-900/GCE). Electrochemical behaviors of hydroquinone (HQ), catechol (CC) and resorcinol (RC) on the SA-900/GCE surface were investigated, and it was found that SA-900 possesses excellent electrocatalytic activity towards them. Experimental conditions including carbonization temperature, pH value, SA-900 concentration, accumulation potential and accumulation time were optimized for quantitative assay. Under optimized conditions, linear ranges for simultaneous determination of HQ, CC and RC are 0.05-1.50 μM, 0.05-1.50 μM and 0.50-15.00 μM, respectively. Detection limits for HQ, CC and RC are calculated to be 0.0183 μM, 0.0303 μM and 0.3193 μM (S/N = 3). The SA-900/GCE based electrochemical sensing platform is applied for determining HQ, CC and RC in lake water samples with satisfactory results.