Developing an electrochemical sensor for the detection of tert-butylhydroquinone

In the work, a ratiometric electrochemical sensor for tert-butylhydroquinone (TBHQ) detection is constructed based on the modified electrode consisting of manganese dioxide (MnO 2 ) and electrochemically reduced graphene oxide (ERGO) nanocomposite film. MnO 2 was electrodeposited onto the electrochemically reduced graphene oxide (ERGO) placed on a glassy carbon electrode (GCE) to form the MnO 2 /ERGO/GCE. The construction process of the MnO 2 /ERGO/GCE electrode was characterized by scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and Raman spectroscopy. The electrochemical signal responses of the TBHQ sensor were recorded by differential pulse voltammetric measurements. The experimental results demonstrate that MnO 2 can be used as the inner reference electrochemical probe, and ERGO can improve the sensitivity for TBHQ detection. It can be found that as the TBHQ concentration increases, the anodic peak current of TBHQ at the MnO 2 /ERGO/GCE increases, but the anodic peak current of MnO 2 at such the modified electrode almost remains unchangeable. The net peak current ratio between TBHQ and MnO 2 is chosen for quantitative detection of TBHQ. The developed ratiometric sensor exhibits two linear ranges of 1.0–50.0 μM and 100.0–300.0 μM for detecting TBHQ. The detection limit for TBHQ detection is estimated to be 0.8 μM on the basis of signal-to-noise ( S / N ) of 3. Moreover, the ratiometric electrochemical sensor is successfully applied for TBHQ detection in real edible oil samples.