UiO-66 based electrochemical sensor for simultaneous detection of Cd(II) and Pb(II)

Heavy metal ion pollution has been a potential threat to human health. Herein, a sensitive electrochemical sensor for simultaneously detection of Cd(II) and Pb(II) was developed using a metal–organic framework material UiO-66. UiO-66 before and after carbonization was used to modify the GCE electrodes, respectively. The carbonized UiO-66 modified GCE electrode (CUiO-66/Bi/GCE) showed good detection ability with the linear detection range of 10–50 μg/L and detection limit of 1.16 and 1.14 μg/L for Cd(II) and Pb(II), respectively. Compared with UiO-66, carbonized UiO-66 provided more active sites for Bi ions and heavy metal ions to co-deposit and facilitated the electron transfer, leading to better detection performance. The decoration strategy was applied to disposable screen-printed carbon electrodes (SPCEs) to obtain the linear detection range of 20–120 μg/L and detection limit of 4.67 and 1.24 μg/L for Cd(II) and Pb(II) respectively. The prepared electrochemical sensors hold great potential in real water sample detections.