Green Synthesis of Silver Nanoparticles to Detect Arsenic

Abstract

There is a great challenge to detect and remove heavy metals which have posed a severe threat to our ecological systems. The extreme toxicity of heavy metals such as Arsenic (III) is a top priority to the Environmental Protection Agency due to carcinogenic aspects and Asn+ exists in the earth’s crust and groundwater. It has been found that serious health problems and various skin cancers can occur due to long term exposure to contaminated water with arsenic. The high demand to develop effective and low cost electrochemical sensors that are reliable to detect low concentration of arsenic with such techniques as square wave anodic stripping voltammetry are highly needed. The design and fabrication electrode surface can facilitate the oxidation of the analyte from the surface under optimized synthesized Ag nanoparticle carbon electrode surface. The synthesis of silver nanoparticles by utilizing beet juice was a nontoxic synthesis protocol “green technology”. The synthesized silver nanoparticles were deposited onto the working carbon electrode to detect Arsenic (III). The confirmation of successful synthesis of silver nanoparticles from beet juice was confirmed by UV-Vis peak around 450 nm and further confirmation from an FTIR . The modified silver nanoparticle carbon electrode enhanced the catalytic activity of the surface to detect the As(III) better than the bare C electrode surface. Plot of Arseinc (III) versus Current in mA gave a linear calibration plot of 0.99 over 4 magnitudes of concentration. The stability, good shelf life and reusability of the modified silver nanoparticle carbon electrode as an electrochemical sensor for the detection of As(III) were analyzed and will be presented accordingly.