Facile and novel electrochemical preparation of a graphene–transition metal oxide nanocomposite for ultrasensitive electrochemical sensing of acetaminophen and phenacetin

Abstract

A facile and novel preparation strategy based on electrochemical techniques for the fabrication of electrodeposited graphene (EGR) and zinc oxide (ZnO) nanocomposite was developed. The morphology and structure of the EGR-based nanocomposite were investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (XPS) and Raman spectroscopy. Meanwhile, the electrochemical performance of the nanocomposite was demonstrated with cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). Due to the synergistic effect of EGR and ZnO nanoparticles, an ultrasensitive electrochemical sensor for acetaminophen (AC) and phenacetin (PCT) was successfully fabricated. The linearity ranged from 0.02 to 10 μM for AC and 0.06 to 10 μM for PCT with high sensitivities of 54 295.82 μA mM⁻¹ cm² for AC and 21 344.66 μA mM⁻¹ cm² for PCT, respectively. Moreover, the practical applicability was validated to be reliable and desirable in pharmaceutical detections. The excellent results showed the promise of the proposed preparation strategy of EGR–transition metal oxide nanocomposite in the field of electroanalytical chemistry.