Urea-based morphological engineering of ZnO; for the biosensing enhancement towards dopamine and uric acid in food and biological samples

Abstract

Abstract The Dopamine and Uric acid play a prominent part in mammalian neuronal networks, which bridges the brain and neurons. Accordingly, several types of research were passionate about the sensing of Dopamine (DA) and Uric acid (UA) in food and biological samples. Consequently, the sensing properties of notorious materials, ought to be elevated through the morphological tuning for the development of advanced DA and UA sensors. For the very first time, a comprehensively applied effective material of the DA and UA sensors, Zinc oxide (ZnO) is prepared through the microwave method with the different stoichiometric ratios of urea, such as [C4H6O4Zn · 2H2O: CH4N2O] = [1:1], [1:2], and [1:3], respectively. After that, we established the DA and UA biosensor over the cost-effective screen-printed carbon electrode (SPCE) adaption method. Thus, the ZnO adapted electrode exhibited excellent catalytic properties towards the simultaneous detection of DA and UA. It gained a broad working range between 100 nM and 374 μM for DA and 100 nM and 169 μM for UA with the ultralow limit of detection and significant sensitivity. This technique is effectively exploited for the detection of DA and UA levels in the samples of meat, wheat flour, and human urine.