Nitrogen-doped carbon hollow trunk-like structure as a portable electrochemical sensor for noradrenaline detection in neuronal cells

To date, the production and development of portable analytical devices for environmental and healthcare applications are rapidly growing. Herein, a portable electrochemical sensor for monitoring of noradrenaline (NA) secreted from living cells using mesoporous carbon-based materials was fabricated. The modification of the interdigitated electrode array (IDA) by nitrogen-doped mesoporous carbon spheres (N-doped MCS) and nitrogen-doped carbon hollow trunk-like structure (N-doped CHT) was used to fabricate the NA sensor. The N-doped CHT surface shows multiple holes distributed with micrometer-sized open holes (1–2 μm) and nanometer-sized thin walls (∼98 nm). The N-doped CHT surface heterogeneity of wrinkled and twisted hollow trunk structures improve the diffusion pathway and the NA molecules loading. The N-doped CHT/IDA showed a highly selective assay for monitoring of NA with high sensitivity (1770 μA/μM × cm²), a low detection limit (0.005 μM), and a wide linear range (0.01–0.3 μM). The N-doped CHT/IDA monitored the NA secreted from PC12 cells under various concentrations of simulation agents (KCl). The designed N-doped CHT/IDA provides a portable NA-sensor assay with facile signaling, good stability, high biocompatibility, in-vitro assay compatibility, and good reproducibility. Therefore, the designed sensor can be used as a portable sensor for NA detection in live cells and can be matched with portable smartphones after further developments.