Simultaneous determination of codeine and its co-formulated drugs acetaminophen and caffeine by utilising cerium oxide nanoparticles modified screen-printed electrodes

We report a facile and low-cost methodology for the simultaneous determination of codeine (COD) and its common co-formulated drugs acetaminophen (APAP) and caffeine (CAF) utilising cerium oxide nanoparticles modified screen-printed electrodes (CeO2-SPEs) for the first time. Interestingly, CeO2-SPEs offer a promising, sensitive, robust and chemically stable non-enzymatic electrochemical sensor for the simultaneous determination of APAP, COD and CAF without any interference / overlapping of voltammetric peaks/signals. The electro-analytical sensing of APAP, COD and CAF were explored using CeO2-SPEs over a wide concentration range with competitively low detection limits (3S/N) of 0.051, 0.043 and 2.4 mu mol L-1 respectively. The CeO2-SPEs with nanoscale CeO2 architectures exhibit practical analytical utility for theaccurate and simultaneous determination of APAP, COD and CAF in human serum samples with excellent recoveries. The results show exceptional electrochemical performance of CeO2-SPEs in term of simplicity, stability and sensing abilities that can effectively reduce processing costs for scalable production and routine analysis. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.