Preparation of highly stable fullerene C60 decorated graphene oxide nanocomposite and its sensitive electrochemical detection of dopamine in rat brain and pharmaceutical samples

The research community has continuously paid much attention on the preparation of hybrid of carbon nanomaterials owing to combine their unique properties. Herein, we report the preparation of highly stable fullerene C60 (C60) wrapped graphene oxide (GO) nanocomposite by using a simple sonication method. The fabricated GO-C60 nanocomposite modified glassy carbon electrode shows a good sensitivity and lower oxidation overpotential towards dopamine (DA) than that of pristine GO and C60. The fabricated sensor detects the DA in the linear response range of 0.02-73.5 mu M. The limit of detection is estimated to be 0.008 mu M based on 3 sigma with a sensitivity of 4.23 mu A mu M-1 cm(-2). The fabricated sensor also exhibits other features such as good selectivity, stability, reproducibility and repeatability. The proposed sensor exhibits good practicality towards the detection of DA in rat brain and commercial DA injection samples. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.