A Spinel Metal Oxide (Ni–Fe–O) Decorated Glassy Carbon Electrode as a Sensitive Sensor for the Electrochemical Detection of Fenitrothion

Abstract

Fenitrothion is a widely prescribed pesticide in agriculture to control penetrating, chewing, and sucking pests on various crops. The electrochemical analytical technique is the obvious choice for establishing a fast, simple, cheap, and sensitive method for fenitrothion analysis. Nickel-iron spinel is an ideal material for electrode modification due to its good electrochemical catalytic properties, high specific surface properties of the nanoparticles, and target trapping ability of the metal hydroxyl sites. Therefore, this work intends to improve the detection of fenitrothion in the environmental matrix by adopting an electrochemical sensor. Herein, NiFe2O4 material was prepared in terms of the hydrothermal synthesis method. Its electrocatalytic performance in fenitrothion detection was evaluated. The synthesized NiFe2O4 was characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The electrocatalytic performance of the electrode modified by NiFe2O4 was studied through cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). It was observed that the fabricated electrochemical sensor based on NiFe2O4 modified electrode exhibited higher electrocatalytic activity towards fenitrothion, resulting in a wide linear range of detection with a low limit of detection (LOD) of 1 × 10−8 mol l−1.