Choline acetate modified ZnO nanostructure as efficient electrochemical sensor for hydrazine detection

Abstract

In this work, a simple precipitation mediated green synthesis of novel hexagonal zinc oxide nanostructure (ZnO NS) modified with green ionic liquid (IL) viz. Choline acetate (ChAc) has been reported. The well-characterised hexagonal ChAc/ZnO NS (50–72 nm size) were applied for the fabrication of ChAc/ZnO NS/ gold (Au) electrode. Further, the effect of surface modification on the Au electrode was analysed using EIS technique. Electrocatalytic behaviour of the ChAc/ZnO NS/Au electrode for electrochemical detection of hydrazine was investigated by employing cyclic voltammetry (CV) and chronoamperometry. Further, linear sweep voltammetry (LSV) was utilized to determine the analytical parameters of the modified electrode. The hexagonal ChAc/ZnO NS/Au electrode enables low level detection of hydrazine in neutral medium samples, with a detection limit of 0.4 µM. Also, high current sensitivity of (2.66 μA μM−1) and wide linear ranges (0.5–500 µM and 500–9000 μM) have been obtained from the concentration calibration plots. The sensor also demonstrates selective hydrazine sensing and promises fairly reproducible results along with good stability, thus making it viable for application in effective electrochemical detection of hydrazine.