Microwave-assisted decoration of cotton fabrics with Nickel-Cobalt sulfide as a wearable glucose sensing platform

Flexibility and human-body compatibility have been emerged through the use of commercial fabrics (CFs) in designing wearable non-enzymatic glucose sensing platforms. In this work, electrodes fabricated through direct synthesis of ternary nickel–cobalt sulfide nanostructures (Ni-Co-S NSs) on the CFs (Ni-Co-S@CFs) using a fast and facile one-step microwave-assisted method for this purpose. Fabrication was followed by the structural and electrochemical characterization of the electrodes. The glucose-sensing ability of the prepared wearable electrodes was investigated via cyclic voltammetry (CV) and amperometry techniques in alkaline media. Two linear-responses in wide detection ranges of 0.04–2.3 and 2.31–9.91 mM with the sensitivities of 628.1 and 242.8 μA mM-1cm−2, respectively, together with a relatively low detection limit of 28.7 μM (based on S/N = 3) were obtained. Sensors showed high selectivity, acceptable repeatability, and long-term stability. The glucose level in human serum samples was further determined by employing the fabricated Ni-Co-S@CFs. Encouraging performance together with the flexible and foldable design make the fabricated sensing platforms immensely promising for wearable sensing applications