Fabrication of a Selective Sensor Amplification Probe Modified with Multi-Component Zn2SnO4/SnO2 Heterostructured Microparticles as a Robust Electrocatalyst for Electrochemical Detection of Antibacterial Drug Secnidazole.

Ramaraj Sukanya,Karuppaiah Balamurugan,K. Muthupandi,Ramachandran Rajakumaran,Jae-Jin Shim,Carmel B. Breslin,Shen-Ming Chen

doi:10.3390/ma14216700

Abstract

In this study, we synthesized heterostructured zinc stannate/tin oxide microparticles (ZTO/TO MPs) by a simple coprecipitation method and used them as an effective electrode material for the electrochemical detection of the antibacterial drug secnidazole (SCZ). The as-prepared ZTO/TO MPs were characterized by XRD, Raman, FE-SEM, HR-TEM, EDX, and XPS analyses. The physiochemical studies clearly proved that the fabricated ZTO/TO MPs were formed in a heterostructure phase without other impurities. A glassy carbon electrode modified with the synthesized ZTO/TO MPs showed an excellent and improved electrocatalytic activity in the electrochemical reduction of SCZ. Using differential pulse voltammetry (DPV), an impressive linear calibration range, extending from 0.01 to 193 μM, was observed, coupled with a detection limit of 0.0054 μM and a sensitivity of 0.055 μA/μM. In addition, the ZTO/TO MPs/GCE showed very good selectivity for the detection of SCZ in the presence of a number of biological, inorganic, and structurally related compounds. Finally, the ZTO/TO MPs/GCE was investigated for the analysis of SCZ in human blood serum samples. A very good recovery was obtained when spiking the blood serum with SCZ, highlighting the good applicability of the ZTO/TO MPs/GCE for the electrochemical analysis of SCZ in complex biological samples.

Highlights

Multifunctional metal oxides with multivalent ions form an extensive collection of various nanostructured functional materials with numerous applications in science and technology [1]
The combination of zinc oxide (ZnO) and tin oxide (SnO2 ), to give zinc stannate/tin oxide (ZTO/TO), is characterized by a good conductivity, low toxicity, and high thermal and chemical stability, and it makes a significant contribution as an electrode material in several applications [2,3]
These results clearly show that the GCE modified with ZTO/TO MPs acts as a good electron conducting mediator between the electrode surface interface and the electrolyte, and facilitates the electrochemical reduction of SCZ

Summary

Introduction

Multifunctional metal oxides with multivalent ions form an extensive collection of various nanostructured functional materials with numerous applications in science and technology [1]. In this series, binary metal oxides have been intensively studied, and research on specially designed ternary oxide semiconductors has recently received increasing attention. Zinc stannate is a ternary ntype semiconducting oxide that exhibits multifunctional properties, including a wide band gap (3.6 eV), tunable working potential, high electrical conductivity (10−2 –10−3 Ω cm), high electron mobility (20–50 cm2 /Vs), high chemical stability, slow recombination rate between electrons and holes, and low adsorption capacity, making it a suitable material for various electrochemical energy storage, conversion, and sensing applications [6,7,8,9]. The properties of ZTO/TO mainly result from the cubic/tetragonal combination of ZTO/TO, which consists of both tetrahedral and octahedral sites, where the tetrahedral sites are occupied by Zn2+ cations, while the octahedral sites are occupied by randomly arranged Zn2+

Methods

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Discussion

Conclusion