Increasing the efficiency of reduced graphene oxide obtained via high temperature electrospun calcination process for the electrochemical detection of dopamine

Reduced graphene oxide (rGO) has attracted significant attention for electrochemical sensing applications. In this work, rGO was obtained by thermal annealing of electrospun polymeric nanofiber membrane at 500 and 600 degrees C. The XRD patterns reveals the phase and crystalline formation of rGO. The interlayer spacing decreases at higher temperature that indicates the removal of oxygen containing moieties. FTIR spectrum shows the absence of epoxy, carboxyland hydroxylgroups for rGO-600 that resembles the surface feature of rGO. XPS further corroborates the XRD and FTIR results and quantifies the predominant functional groups in rGO-500 and rGO-600 degrees C. The synthesized materials were applied for the electrochemical sensing of dopamine (DA) by cyclic voltammetry. In the case of rGO-500/SPCE, a linear relationship for the DA concentration wasobserved in the range of 0.5 pM to 20 pM with a detection limit of 1.11 pM. Whereas, rGO-600/SPCEalso gave a linear relationship for the DA concentration in the range of 0.5 pM to 20 pM with 1.23 pM detection limit. These electrodes showed good electrocatalytic activity for the oxidation of DA with a minute variation in their detection limit. Therefore, the annealed material rGO can be efficiently used for the quantitative analysis of dopamine after carefully controlling the surface functional groups.

Automated summary

In this study, rGO was obtained by thermal annealing of electrospun polymeric nanofiber membrane at 500 and 600 degrees C, showing good electrocatalytic activity for the oxidation of dopamine. The XRD and FTIR analysis supported the successful fabrication of rGO with specific surface features. The electrochemical sensing of dopamine using rGO electrodes exhibited linear relationships with low detection limits, indicating the potential for quantitative analysis of dopamine.