Facile Hydrothermal Synthesis and Characterization of NdCoO₃@Nd₂O₃/rGO Hybrid for Electrochemical Sensing of Alpha-Lipoic Acid and Supercapacitor Application

The present study reports a facile, simple, and eco-friendly hydrothermal method of preparation of nanocomposite material, NdCoO₃@Nd₂O₃-rGO, and its utility as an electrochemical sensor and energy storage device. The synthesized NdCoO₃@Nd₂O₃-rGO nanocomposite was investigated in terms of structural and morphological characteristics. The electrochemical sensing performance of the reported material was tested by analyzing an antioxidant, α-lipoic acid (ALA), in pharmaceutical formulations and biological samples. The sensing capability of demonstrated material was noticed to be improved by 28-fold when compared to that at bare glassy carbon electrode. Good linearity was observed between the peak current and concentration of ALA in the range of (0.05–20.92) × 10⁻⁶mol/L and (0.02–28.06) × 10⁻⁶ mol/L for DPV and SWV methods, respectively. Further, the electrochemical energy storage ability of NdCoO₃@Nd₂O₃-rGO was also investigated. For this, NdCoO₃@Nd₂O₃-rGO was fabricated over NF for supercapacitor application. The NdCoO₃@Nd₂O₃-rGO/NF electrode showed good super capacitive properties with a specific capacitance of 1502.22 F/g at a current density of 1 A/g in 1 M KOH electrolyte. The electrode showed good cycling stability with a retention of 78.0% after 5000 cycles.