Electrochemical behavior and voltammetric determination of norfloxacin at glassy carbon electrode modified with multi walled carbon nanotubes/Nafion

Abstract

A simple and rapid electrochemical method is developed for the determination of trace-level norfloxacin, based on the excellent properties of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs). The MWCNTs/Nafion film-coated glassy carbon electrode (GCE) is constructed and the electrochemical behavior of norfloxacin at the electrode is investigated in detail. The results indicate that MWCNTs modified glassy carbon electrode exhibited efficiently electrocatalytic oxidation for norfloxacin (NFX) with relatively high sensitivity, stability and life time. Under conditions of cyclic voltammetry, the current for oxidation of selected analyte is enhanced significantly in comparison to the bare GCE. The electrocatalytic behavior is further exploited as a sensitive detection scheme for the analyte determinations by linear sweep voltammetry (LSV). Under optimized condition in voltammetric method the concentration calibration range and detection limit (S/N = 3) are 0.1–100 μmol/L and 5 × 10 −8 mol/L for NFX. The proposed method was successfully applied to NFX determination in tablets. The analytical performance of this sensor has been evaluated for detection of the analyte in urine as a real sample.