Rational Construction of V2O5 with Functionalized MWCNTs: An Efficient Electron Transfer Electrode Material for Facile Detection of N-acetyl-p-aminophenol

Abstract

N-acetyl-p-aminophenol, commonly known as paracetamol (PAL), is a widely prescribed drug for the treatment of fever and moderate pain. The presence of PAL at trace levels has been detected in hospital wastewater, drinking water, and sewage water, primarily due to its excretion from human and animal urine. Therefore, this work intends to improve the detection of PAL in human urine, thereby boosting its monitoring and analysis in environmental samples. Here in we developed a rational construction of the nanoflake structured vanadium pentoxide (V2O5) particles with functionalized multiwalled carbon nanotube [V2O5@f-MWCNT (1–4)] and evaluated their electrocatalytic performance for the detection of PAL. The synthesized materials were characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) with elemental mapping analysis. The electrocatalytic performance of different electrocatalysts on the GCE surface was studied through cyclic voltammetry (CV) and differential pulse voltammetry (DPV). It was observed that the optimized V2O5@f-MWCNT-3 nanocomposite exhibited higher electrocatalytic activity towards PAL, resulting in a wide linear range of detection. The respectable limit of detection (LOD) of the V2O5@f-MWCNT-3 modified GCE was found to be 0.00185 μM and utilized for analyzing PAL in real samples.