Synthesis, Characterization, and Electrocatalytic Behaviour of Hydrothermally grown Nanostructured La 2 O 3 and La 2 O 3 /K-complex.

Rare earth metals play a conspicuous role in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for detecting cancerous cells, whereas the alkali metal potassium is a neurotransmitter in sodium-potassium pump in biomedical science. This unique property of rare earth metals and potassium drew our attention to carry forward this study. Thus, in this work, the previously synthesized potassium (K) complexes by the refluxtion of 4-N,N-dimethylaminobenzoic acid (DBA) and potassium hydroxide in the methanol, named as [(μ2-4-N,N-dimethylaminobenzoate-κO)(μ2-4-N,N-dimethylaminobenzoic acid-κO)(4-N,N-dimethylaminobenzoic acid-κO) potassium(I) coordination polymer)] was treated hydrothermally with La 2 O 3 nanomaterials to obtained the nanohybrid La 2 O 3 /K-complex. After that, the K-complex was analyzed from single-crystal X-ray diffraction and 1 H & 13 C NMR, whereas the structural and morphological characteristics of the as-prepared nanostructured La 2 O 3 /K-complex were also carried out, which involved the investigation via X-ray diffraction spectroscopy (XRD), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, Atomic force spectroscopy (AFM), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and Energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX). After this, the electrochemical redox behavior of the synthesized nanohybrid material was studied through cyclic voltammetry (CV) and differential pulse voltammetry (DPV). Hence, the results from these studies revealed that the as-prepared materials were La 2 O 3 /K-complex and have a promising role in sensing various analytes, as they showed effective electrocatalytic behavior.