Gold nanoparticle and poly(arginine) modified GCE for simultaneous determination of hydroquinone and catechol

Abstract

In this work, a novel electrochemical sensor based on gold nanoparticle (AuNP) and poly(L-arginine) (P(AG)) modified glassy carbon electrode (GCE) (P(AG)/AuNP/GCE) was designed to determine hydroquinone (HQ) and catechol (CC). Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) were utilized to characterize the P(AG)/AuNP/GCE. Differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) results revealed that the modified GCE represented high selectivity for the simultaneous determination of HQ and CC. The linear working ranges of HQ and CC were in the concentration range of 5.0 to 600.0 µmol L−1 with the detection limits of 1.5 and 1.42 µmol L−1, respectively. The prepared sensor is a suitable tool with low cost for the rapid analysis of HQ and CC in the real samples with high recoveries.