Defect engineering of PdMo metallene for sensitive electrochemical detection of dopamine

Reasonable design and construction of high-performance catalysts are desirable for improving the sensitivity of electrochemical sensors, but still remain a great challenge. Herein, ultrathin PdMo metallene with defects (D-PdMo) is fabricated and employed as an electrocatalyst to construct electrochemical sensors for the sensitive determination of small biomolecules. Taking advantage of the change of electronic structure, conductivity and electrochemical active surface areas caused by the defect engineering, the resultant D-PdMo metallene exhibits a much better electrocatalytic ability to dopamine (DA) than PdMo metallene. Furthermore, the proposed electrochemical sensor realizes sensitive DA detection in human blood serum and cells. Our work not only verifies the feasibility of introducing defects into metallene to enhance catalytic performance but also broadens the application of metallene in the electrochemical sensors for monitoring biomolecules in living organisms.