Fabrication of carbon-based nanomaterial composite electrochemical sensor for the monitoring of terbutaline in pharmaceutical formulations

Abstract

The present investigation is focused on the development of a chemical sensor made by the modification of glassy carbon electrode (GCE) with graphene followed by multi walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) towards the quantitative monitoring of Terbutaline (TB). The developed sensor was characterized with cyclic voltammetry, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) studies. The detailed electrochemical redox behavior of TB was examined and possible redox mechanism was proposed. We have studied the effect of pH of phosphate buffer solution (PBS) on the redox behavior of TB and the results suggest that the pH-4.5 was an optimum pH. From the effect of scan rate results, it was concluded that the redox process was controlled by diffusion process and the kinetic parameters were calculated. The effect of concentration of TB was studied and calibration plot was constructed to study the limit of detection and limit of quantification and it was found to be as 6.527×10−7M and 2.175×10−6M respectively. The repeatability, reproducibility and stability of MWCNTs/graphene/GCE, suggest that the developed sensor was superior in condition. The developed sensor was used for the estimation of TB in pharmaceutical formulations and the results were found to be in satisfactory range.