An in-situ synthesis of novel V2O5/G-C3N4/PVA nanocomposite for enhanced electrocatalytic activity toward sensitive and selective sensing of folic acid in natural samples

Abstract

This paper describes a highly sensitive and selective electrochemical sensing of folic acid (FA) using vanadium pentoxide decorated graphene carbon nitride covalently grafted polyvinyl alcohol modified GC electrode (V2O5/G-C3N4/PVA/GCE). The V2O5/G-C3N4/PVA nanocomposite was synthesized by an in-situ oxidative polymerization method and characterized by various techniques such as UV–visible, Raman, FE-SEM, XRD, FT-IR, EDX, HR-TEM, SAED, and electrochemical methods. The V2O5/G-C3N4/PVA nanocomposite modified GCE showed superior electrocatalytic activity towards the FA detection. The superior electrochemical activity of the catalyst is owing to good conductivity, high surface area and enhanced electron transfer efficiency of the nanocomposite. The amperometric (i-t) studies revealed that the V2O5/G-C3N4/PVA nanocomposite modified GCE performed well by attaining a linear response of FA from 0.01 to 60 µM with a lower detection limit 0.00174 µM and the sensitivity of 19.02 μA µM−1 cm−2. Meanwhile, the V2O5/G-C3N4/PVA nanocomposite modified GCE exhibited good selectivity, rapid and stable response towards FA. The proposed method has been successfully applied for the selective determination of FA in various real samples such as apple juice, green tea and tap water with samples with good recoveries.