A flexible and sensitive electrochemical sensing platform based on dimethyl sulfoxide modified carbon cloth: towards the detection of dopamine and carvedilol.

Abstract

The determination of neurotransmitters and adrenoreceptor drugs is highly essential due to their specific functions in the human body. In this work, the determination of carvedilol (CAR) and dopamine (DA) was carried out using carbon cloth (CC), which was modified using a facile strategy of drop-casting dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO). This induced the formation of functional groups without any loss in the structural integrity of CC. The DMSO modified CC (CC-DMSO) was used for the detection of CAR in the range of 1 nM to 10 μM with a limit of detection (LOD) of 120 pM. Similarly, the CC-DMSO was able to detect DA in the range of 10 pM to 10 μM with a highly promising LOD of 0.3 pM. A bending test was also carried out on the electrode and it could be seen that only a negligible variation in sensing capability was observed when the electrode was in the bent form. In addition, the detection of CAR and DA was also carried out in real samples such as human serum. This study reveals that this modification strategy can serve as a versatile and flexible sensing platform for the detection of CAR and DA together in real world medical scenarios.