Highly selective dopamine electrochemical sensor based on electrochemically pretreated graphite and nafion composite modified screen printed carbon electrode

Herein, we report a highly selective dopamine electrochemical sensor based on electrochemically pretreated graphite/nafion composite modified screen printed carbon (SPC) electrode. Electrochemically activated graphite/nafion composite was prepared by using a simple electrochemical method. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) used to characterize the surface morphology of the fabricated composite electrode. The SEM result clearly indicates that the graphitic basal planes were totally disturbed and leads to the formation of graphite nanosheets. The composite modified electrode showed an enhanced electrocatalytic activity toward the oxidation of DA when compared with either electrochemical pretreated graphite or nafion SPC electrodes. The fabricated composite electrode exhibits a good electrocatalytic oxidation toward DA in the linear response range from 0.5 to 70 mu M with the detection limit of 0.023 mu M. The proposed sensor also exhibits very good selectivity and stability, with the appreciable sensitivity. In addition, the proposed sensor showed satisfactory recovery results toward the commercial pharmaceutical DA samples. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.