Sensitive and selective m-tolyl hydrazine chemical sensor development based on CdO nanomaterial decorated multi-walled carbon nanotubes

In this approach, the wet-chemical (co-precipitation) technique was used to prepare the cadmium oxide (CdO) nanoparticles (NPs) decorated with multi-walled carbon nanotubes (CNT) at low temperature. The powder XDR, UV-vis, TEM, XPS, and FTIR spectroscopy were used for detail characterization of the synthesized CdO/CNT nanocomposite (NCs). A thin layer of CdO/CNT NCs was deposited onto a glassy carbon electrode (GCE) with conducting coating binder to obtain a chemical sensor which was subsequently used to detect m-tolyl hydrazine hydrochloride (m-THyd) in buffer medium by electrochemical approach for environmental safety. The proposed m-THyd chemical sensor exhibited long-term stability, good selectivity, broad linear dynamic range, lower detection limit, and enhanced electrochemical response. The calibration curve of the current vs concentration of m-THyd was found to be linear (r(2) = 0.9903) over the linear dynamic range (LDR) of 0.01 nM to 0.1 mM. The sensitivity (25.7911 mu A mu M cm(-2)) of chemical sensor was calculated from the slope of calibration curve and surface area of GCE (0.0316 cm(2)) and the detection limit (4.0 +/- 0.2 mu M) was estimated from the signal to noise ratio at 3. These preliminary results suggest that the newly developed CdO/CNT NCs nanocomposite could be promising electrochemical sensors for the detection of hazardous toxins to clean the environment in broad scales. (C) 2019 The Korean Society of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.