Electrocatalytic sensing of metronidazole by R-type hexagonal nanoferrites modified electrode
Sajjad Hussain, Imran Sadiq, Jameel Ahmed Baig, Farhan Sadiq, Imam Bux Solangi, Khalil Akhtar, Shakoor Ahmed Solangi, Mishal Idress, Saira Riaz, Shahzad Naseem
Abstract
The current study was aimed to synthesize the R-type hexagonal nanoferrites (SrSn 2 Fe 4 O 11 ) for electrochemical sensing of metronidazole (MN) in pharmaceutical and human specimen. The SrSn 2 Fe 4 O 11 were prepared by sol–gel auto ignition method followed by structural and surface characterization by X-Ray diffraction (XRD) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) respectively. The resulting surface characterization data suggested that the synthesized SrSn 2 Fe 4 O 11 have a single-phase crystalline structure with a crystalline size of 34.451 nm with surface topographical ranging from 0.506 to 3.37 nm. The SrSn 2 Fe 4 O 11 modified glassy carbon electrode (SrSn 2 Fe 4 O 11 /GCE) was fabricated by a drop-casting method. The fabricated SrSn 2 Fe 4 O 11 /GCE was successfully applied for detecting MN in a phosphate buffer (PB) at pH-6, followed by a linear voltammetric response with the coefficient of determination (R 2 = 0.998). The limit of detection and quantification (LOD/LOQ) for sensing MN was found to be 0.011 to 0.036 μM, respectively. A differential pulse voltammetric study of MN on SrSn 2 Fe 4 O 11 /GCE demonstrated a significant selectivity with RSD 2.0%. The proposed electrochemical method was successfully applied for the quantitative detection of MN in pharmaceutical preparations and biological specimen.