Ultrasensitive electrochemical detection of an antibiotic drug furaltadone in fish tissue with a ZnO-ZnCo2O4 self-assembled nano-heterostructure as an electrode material

Abstract

Development of electrochemical sensor for sensing hazardous and toxic analytes are much needed. In this work, we report a Zinc oxide (ZnO) and zinc cobalt oxide (ZnCo2O4) forming a nano-heterostructure (NH) decorated on a glassy carbon electrode (GCE) for the electrochemical detection of furaltadone (FLT). ZnO-ZnCo2O4 NH was prepared using a hydrothermal assisted one-step calcination process. Physicochemical characterization of the synthesized ZnO-ZnCo2O4 was carried out using the XRD, XPS, and FESEM. The electrochemical performances were studied using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and voltammetry techniques like cyclic voltammetry (CV) and differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) in phosphate buffer pH-7. A newly developed FLT sensor based on the ZnO-ZnCo2O4 NH modified electrode showed a respectable linear range (0.01 to 4.68 μM and 15 to 100 μM) with a lower detection limit (1.46 nM and 34.1 nM), and higher sensitivity (24.4 and 0.72 μA.μM−1.cm−2). Further, ZnO-ZnCo2O4 NH modified electrode displayed excellent selectivity among other common interfering species found in fish tissues. Additionally, our advanced sensor demonstrated good reproducibility, repeatability, and stability. The developed sensor's practicability was successfully applied in analyzing FLT in fish tissues, and compared with HPLC results.