Design and investigation of barium vanadate nanoflakes incorporated on the multi-layered graphene nanocomposite: An efficient electrocatalyst for the rapid determination of hazardous insecticide methiocarb in environmental media

Abstract

The overuse of pesticides to increase essential food production adversely affects the environment and human health. Methiocarb (MTC) is the most effective insecticide (acaricide) for controlling mollusks in soil and plants. However, MTC has poisoning effects on non-targeted living organisms and soil. Therefore, MTC monitoring in soil and water samples is necessary to mitigate its poisoning effect on living organisms. In this study, we explored novel architectures of barium vanadate multi-layered graphene (BaV2O6-ML-Gr) nanocomposites as highly selective and sensitive electrodes for MTC detection. These materials were synthesized using a facile precipitation method and ultrasonication. They were then utilized as electrode matrices for the electrochemical quantification of MTC in environmental samples. Subsequently, the electrochemical performance of the BaV2O6-ML-Gr/screen-printed carbon electrode (SPCE) was evaluated using differential pulse voltammetry, which revealed a high sensitivity of 1.0805 µA/(µM−1 cm−2) with a low detection limit of 8 nM and an adequate linear response of 0.01–64.9 µM. The real-time quantification of MTC using BaV2O6-ML-Gr/SPCE was conducted with different soil and water samples, which provided acceptable recovery results for MTC. The results showed that BaV2O6-ML-Gr/SPCE can be used for the on-site electrochemical analysis of MTC.