Electrocatalytic reduction of nitroaromatic compounds by activated graphite sheets in the presence of atmospheric oxygen molecules

Abstract

Abstract The anthropogenic climate and environmental issues incite the remediation of nitroaromatic compounds (NACs). Therefore, most of the researches have been devoted to the electrocatalytic reduction of NACs. Mainly, the carbonaceous materials have been employed as an electrode material for the determination of NACs. However, the effect of oxygen reduction is necessary to address with the electrocatalytic reduction of NACs. Hence, this work mainly focuses the reduction of NACs with the saturated oxygen and atmospheric oxygen conditions. The graphite and nitrobenzene (NB) were chosen as a model electrode and analyte for assess the effect of oxygen reduction. Though, the graphite is no longer express high electrocatalytic activity thus the activated graphite sheets were employed in the determination of NACs. Interestingly, the activated graphite sheets exhibited an excellent performance to the reduction of nitrobenzene and revealed an acceptable linear range around 0.05–1100 µM, 0.05–147 µM and 0.05–145 µM, in the N2, O2 and aerated atmospheres, respectively. Moreover, the lowest detection limits were obtained around 0.026 µM, 0.031 µM and 0.032 µM, for the N2, O2 and aerated atmospheres respectively. In order to investigate the electrochemical reactivity of activated graphite, four different NACs were selected such as flutamide (anti-cancer drug), methyl parathion (pesticide), 4-nitro aniline and 4-nitro phenol.