One-Step Fabrication of Nickel-Electrochemically Reduced Graphene Oxide Nanocomposites Modified Electrodes and Application to the Detection of Sunset Yellow in Drinks

Quang-Trung Nguyen,Truong-Giang Le,Philippe Bergonzo,Quang-Thuan Tran

doi:10.3390/app12052614

Abstract

This work describes a straightforward method using one-step preparation of graphene/nickel nanocomposite materials from low-cost materials including graphene oxide and nickel metal. Repetitive CVs lead to the simultaneous deposition of metallic nickel nanoparticles and reduced graphene oxide sheets onto glassy carbon electrode. The obtained nanocomposite-modified surfaces were characterised by cyclic voltammetry, differential pulse voltammetry and field emission scanning electron microscopy. The result demonstrated the ability to produce nickel nanoparticles with a small size of about 20 nm, uniformly dispersed on a graphene oxide matrix. The ERGO-NiNP nanocomposite could be used as a sensor material exhibiting high performance; it is used here in order to detect Sunset Yellow (SY) and for quantification in complex media. The sensor enables rapid quantification of SY with a good linearity (R2 = 0.996) in the range of 10–1000 nM, together with a low detection limit of 3.7 nM (equivalent to 1.7 µg L−1) and a high sensitivity up to 7 µA/µM. The sensor also displays high reliability with a RSD value = 1.08 (n = 10) and good reusability (signal response variation below 5% after 5 detection/cleaning cycles). Finally, we demonstrate how this GCE/ERGO-NiNP sensor can be used for the successful determination of SY in commercial soft drink samples with an acceptable deviation below 6.4% when compared to HPLC method.

Highlights

Sunset yellow (SY) is a dye extensively used in the preparation of several types of food including soft drinks, candies, cheese, cake, ice-cream, canned juice, sauce, etc
The repetitive reduction process led to the electrodeposition of electrochemically reduced graphene oxide films on the GCE surface following the previously described procedure [55]
The second Cyclic Voltammetry (CV) scan displays the characteristic signal of nickel reduction at −0.8 V/saturated calomel reference electrode (SCE) and a very high current in the cathodic region overlapping the peak of graphene oxide (GO) reduction

Summary

Introduction

Sunset yellow (SY) is a dye extensively used in the preparation of several types of food including soft drinks, candies, cheese, cake, ice-cream, canned juice, sauce, etc. It is a synthetic dye composed of an azo group with aromatic rings that can cause mutagenic and carcinogenic risks in humans [1–3]. For conventional techniques used to quantify SY analysis, one can refer to UV-VIS absorption [4,5] fluorescence [6], Raman [7] spectroscopies, and liquid chromatography [8,9] with varying levels of complexity and accuracy In this context, electrochemical techniques offer the advantage that they can be used directly in the medium to test, with little preparation, simplifying the detection protocol in order to offer a rapid response and portable analysis. The challenge is to develop electrodes enabling high sensitivity and accuracy

Methods

Results

Conclusion