Sensitive determination of vanillin based on an arginine functionalized graphene film

An arginine (Arg) functionalized graphene (Arg-G) nanocomposite was produced successfully and the procedure was environment-friendly. An electrochemical sensor based on the Arg-G nanocomposite was developed for the determination of vanillin. The Arg-G modified glassy carbon electrode (GCE) showed excellent sensitivity properties by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and differential pulse voltammetry (DPV). Under the optimized conditions, the oxidation peak current was proportional to vanillin concentration in the range of 2.0 × 10−6 to 7.0 × 10−5 mol L−1 with the correlation coefficient of 0.9986 and the detection limit of 1.0 × 10−6 mol L−1 (S/N = 3). Moreover, the sensor could be used for the detection of vanillin in real food samples with satisfactory results.