Nanostructured Boron-Doped Diamond Electrodes for Enhanced Heavy Metal Sensing

This paper presents a novel fabrication technique that enables the precise formation of nanostructures on targeted regions of boron-doped diamond (BDD) electrodes. The process utilizes a custom-grown porous anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) template created by anodization, followed by reactive ion etching (RIE) to transfer the nanostructures from the AAO template to the BDD surface. This method eliminates the need for complex two-step diamond synthesis approaches and is more time- and cost-efficient. The fabricated nanostructured BDD (NSBDD) surface increases the electrochemical active surface area by 556% with nanostructures on the surface that helps to lower the limit of detection (LOD) significantly in heavy metal sensing.