LAUSR

The development of graphene structures with controlled edges is greatly desired for understanding heterogeneous electrochemical (EC) transfer and boosting EC applications of graphene-based electrodes. We herein report a facile, scalable, and robust method to produce graphene mesh (GM) electrodes with tailorable edge lengths. Specifically, the GMs were fabricated at 850 °C under a vacuum level of 0.6 Pa using catalytic nickel templates obtained based on a crack lithography. As the edge lengths of the GM electrodes increased from 5.48 to 24.04 m, their electron transfer rates linearly increased from 0.08 to 0.16 cm∙s−1, which are considerably greater than that (0.056 ± 0.007 cm∙s−1) of basal graphene structures (defined as zero edge length electrodes). To illustrate the EC sensing potentiality of the GM, a high-sensitivity glucose detection was conducted on the graphene/Ni hybrid mesh with the longest edge length. At a detection potential of 0.6 V, the edge-rich graphene/Ni hybrid mesh sensor exhibited a wide linear response range from 10.0 μM to 2.5 mM with a limit of detection of 1.8 μM and a high sensitivity of 1118.9 μA∙mM−1∙cm−2. Our findings suggest that edge-rich GMs can be valuable platforms in various graphene applications such as graphene-based EC sensors with controlled and improved performance.