Fabrication of highly sensitive and selective nanocomposite film based on CuNPs/fullerene-C60/MWCNTs: An electrochemical nanosensor for trace recognition of paracetamol

Abstract

Designing an electrochemical sensor for versatile clinical applications is a sophisticated task and how dedicatedly functionalized composite materials can perform on this stage is a challenge for today and tomorrow's Nanoscience and Nanotechnology. In the present work, we demonstrate a new strategy for the development of novel electrochemical sensor based on catalytic nanocomposite film. Fullerene-C60 and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were dropped on the pre-treated carbon paste electrode (CPE) and copper nanoparticles (CuNPs) electrochemically deposited on the modified CPE to form nanocomposite film of CuNPs/C60/MWCNTs/CPE. In this work, an electrochemical method based on square wave voltammetry (SWV) employing CuNPs/C60/MWCNTs/CPE has been presented for the recognition and determination of paracetamol (PT). Developed electrochemical sensor was characterized using cyclic voltammetry (CV), electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), and chronocoulometry. The composite film made the fabricated sensor to display high sensitivity and good selectivity for PT detection. The influence of the optimization parameters such as pH, accumulation time, deposition potential, scan rate and effect of loading of composite mixture of C60-MWCNTs and CuNPs on the electrochemical performance of the sensor were evaluated. A linear range from 4.0 × 10−9 to 4.0 × 10−7 M for PT detection was obtained with a detection limit of 7.3 × 10−11 M. The fabricated sensor was successfully applied to the detection of PT in biological samples with good recovery ranging from 99.21 to 103%.