HYDROTHERMAL SYNTHESIS AND CHARACTERIZATION OF NANOCOMPOSITE BASED ON CHALCOPYRITE NANOSTRUCTURES DECORATED ON HEXAGONAL BORON NITRIDES NANOSHEETS TO INVESTIGATE THE ELECTROCHEMICAL SENSING OF NSCLC BIOMARKER

Abstract

Nanocomposites play a pivotal role in the fabrication of extraordinary electrochemical sensing platforms as they possess high catalytic ability, good chemical stability, versatility, and ultra-high surface sites for accurate, selective probing of target analytes. Taking into consideration, copper ferrous sulfide (CuFeS2, widely known as chalcopyrite), a promising candidate of ternary transition metal chalcogenide family (TTMC) that possesses good chemical stability, high carrier concentration, commendable adsorption ability, and high catalytic nature. Hexagonal Boron Nitride (h-BN) on the other hand is an inorganic layered material with notable properties such as excellent thermal and chemical stability, biocompatibility, and high surface adsorption compatibility. Yet, it lacks catalytic properties and electron transfer efficiency. In this work, a nanocomposite based on CuFeS2-hBNNS was synthesized by one-pot facile hydrothermal synthesis, as an attempt to overcome the shortcomings of hBNNS. The properties of as-synthesized nanocomposite were investigated through XRD, SEM, FT-IR, and UV-visible spectroscopy. Further, the hydrolyzed indium tin oxide (ITO) glass substrates were used as the substrate for the electrophoretic deposition process (EPD), which was used to develop microelectrodes of CuFeS2-hBNNS at low DC potential (20 V). Successive immobilization of the protein biomarkers associated with Non Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC), including Anti-CEA, BSA, and CEA, were carried out. Subsequently, cyclic voltammetry (CV) and differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) unravelled the diffusion-controlled process and the fruitful protein immobilization depicts the potentiality of CuFeS2-hBNNS nanocomposite for electrochemical sensing of the targeted inoperable disease.