{A novel dopamine electrochemical sensor based on La3+/ZnO nanoflower modified graphite screen printed electrode} http://dx.doi.org/10.5599/jese.674 187 J. Electrochem. Sci. Eng. 9(3) (2019) 187-195; http://dx.doi.org/10.5599/jese.674 Open Access: ISSN 1847-9286 www.jESE-online.org Original scientific paper A novel dopamine electrochemical sensor based on La3+/ZnO nanoflower modified graphite screen printed electrode Somayeh Tajik1,2,, Hadi Beitollahi3, Mohammad Reza Aflatoonian2,4 1Bam University of Medical Sciences, Bam, Iran 2Research Center for Tropical and Infectious Diseases, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran 3Environment Department, Institute of Science and High Technology and Environmental Sciences, Graduate University of Advanced Technology, Kerman, Iran 4Leishmaniasis Research Center, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran Corresponding author: mmtajik_s1365@yahoo.com Received: December 4, 2018; Revised: February 23, 2019; Accepted: February 26, 2019 Abstract Flower-like La3+/ZnO nanocomposite was facile synthesized. A simple and ultrasensitive sensor based on graphite screen printed electrode (SPE) modified by La3+/ZnO nanoflower was developed for the electrochemical determination of dopamine. The electrochemical behavior of dopamine was studied in 0.1 M phosphate buffer solution (PBS) using cyclic voltammetry (CV), chronoamperometry (CA) and differential pulse voltammetry (DPV). Compared with the unmodified graphite screen printed electrode, the modified electrode facilitates the electron transfer of dopamine, since it notably increases the oxidation peak current of dopamine. Also, according to CV results the maximum oxidation of dopamine on La3+/ZnO/SPE occurs at 150 mV which is about 140 mV more negative compared with unmodified SPE. Under optimized conditions, the modified electrode exhibited a linear response over the concentration range from 0.15 to 300.0 μM, with a detection limit of 0.08 μM (S/N = 3). The proposed sensor exhibited a high sensitivity, good stability and was successfully applied for dopamine determination in dopamine ampoule, with high recovery. Keywords Dopamine; sensor; graphite screen printed electrode; La3+/ZnO nanoflower Introduction Dopamine (3,4-dihydroxyphenyl ethylamine), as an excitatory neurotransmitter in mammalian central nervous systems [1], plays an important role in several physiological activity such as mood, attitude and movement [2]. Abnormal levels of dopamine may lead to neurological diseases, such http://dx.doi.org/10.5599/jese.674 http://dx.doi.org/10.5599/jese.674 http://www.jese-online.org/ mailto:mmtajik_s1365@yahoo.com J. Electrochem. Sci. Eng. 9(3) (2019) 187-195 DOPAMINE ELECTROCHEMICAL SENSOR 188 as Parkinson's disease and schizophrenia [3-5]. Hence, sensitive and selective detection of dopamine is of great importance for the understanding and diagnostics of neurological diseases. Significant effort has been applied to develop procedures for detection of dopamine, making use of chemiluminescence [6], fluorimetry [7], electrophoresis [8], colorimetry [9], high performance liquid chromatography [10], and electrochemical techniques [11]. As compared to other analytical methods, the electrochemical techniques employing a three electrode system have drawn a considerable attention because of the electroactive nature of dopamine, high selectivity, high sensitivity, low cost, reproducibility, simplicity and short operational duration [12-16]. Screen-printed electrodes (SPEs), which are fabricated by printing several types of inks on a specific substrate have been considered superior. Such SPEs have been recently employed as diagnostic tools for food poisoning, diseases, and environmental pollutants [17-21]. Nowadays, the nanomaterials have been attracted much attention to modify the surface of electrodes for electrochemical detection of target analytes. Thus, modified electrode surfaces offer high effective surface-to-volume ratio, possess a unique ability to enhance the electron transfer between redox centres in the analyte and electrode surfaces, provide a decrease of the overpotential of many analytes with respect to unmodified electrodes and show high catalytic efficiency [22-39]. ZnO is considered as one of the most important and functional metal oxide semiconductor material, due to its various fascinating properties and high technological applications. Because of several interesting properties such as wide band gap (3.37 eV), large exciton binding energy (60 MeV) at room-temperature (larger than several other important semiconductors such as GaN and ZnSe), thermal and mechanical stabilities, piezoelectric and pyroelectric properties, electrochemical and optoelectronic properties, biocompatibility, etc. [40-44]. Due to various interesting properties, ZnO is widely used for variety of applications. Therefore, the excellent properties and wide applications variety of ZnO nanomaterials such as nanorods, nanowires, nanobelts, nanoflowers, nanodisks, nanosheets, nanospirals, nanotubes and so on were prepared via several techniques and reported in the literature [40,45]. According to the previous points, it is important to create suitable conditions for analysis of dopamine in biological fluids. In this study, La3+/ZnO nanoflowers were used to improve the sensitivity of sensors for voltammetric determination of dopamine. The proposed sensor showed good electrocatalytic and accumulative effect on dopamine. In addition, the analytical performance of the suggested sensor for dopamine determination in real samples was evaluated. Experimental Chemicals and apparatus An Autolab potentiostat/galvanostat (PGSTAT 302N, Eco Chemie, the Netherlands) was employed to perform the electrochemical experiments and the system was controlled using a general purpose electrochemical system software. The screen-printed electrode (DropSens, DRP-110, Spain) consists of three conventional electrodes: graphite counter electrode, Ag/AgCl/KCl reference electrode and unmodified graphite working electrode. pH was measured by a Metrohm 710 pH meter. Dopamine and all other reagents were of analytical grade, and purchased from Merck (Darmstadt, Germany). For the preparation of buffers, orthophosphoric acid and its salts were used to provide the pH range of 2.0–9.0. Somayeh Tajik et al. J. Electrochem. Sci. Eng. 9(3) (2019) 187-195 http://dx.doi.org/10.5599/jese.674 189 Preparation of La3+-doped ZnO nanoflowers All the chemicals used for the preparation of nano-powders, namely zinc acetate (Zn(CH3COO)2×2H2O), lanthanum nitrate (La(NO3)3×6H2O), thiourea ((NH2)2CS) and ammonia (25 % NH3), were of analytical grade. All the precursors were dissolved in deionized water. During the preparation of nano-powders, ammonia was used as a complexing agent. ZnO nanostructures were prepared by dissolving 0.46 mol of zinc acetate in 80 mL of deionized water, 0.0046 mol of lanthanium nitrate in 80 mL of deionized water, 0.18 mol of thiourea in 80 mL of deionised water and lastly by adding 19.76 mL of ammonia in 80 mL of deionised water. The amount of solutions of zinc acetate, thiourea and ammonia was held constant at a ratio of 1:1:1. Then the zinc acetate solution was added in a beaker in the reaction bath, followed by adding thiourea and lanthanium nitrate solution in the same reaction bath and the mixture was stirred for a few seconds. Lastly ammonia solution was added slowly into the mixture, while continuing stirring for 5 min. The temperature of the bath was then allowed to increase up to 80 °C. After that, the precipitates were formed, left overnight and filtered thereafter. The precipitates were then washed with ethanol. The obtained powders were dried at ambient conditions for several days. Preparation of the electrode The bare graphite screen printed electrode was coated with La3+/ZnO nanoflower composite according to the following simple procedure: 1 mg La3+/ZnO nanoflower was dispersed in 1 mL aqueous solution within 45 min ultrasonication. Then, 5 µl of the prepared suspension was dropped on the surface of carbon working electrode and left to dry at room temperature. Preparation of real samples One milliliter of a dopamine ampoule (Caspian Tamin Company, Iran, containing 200 mg in 5 ml of dopamine hydrochloride) was diluted to 10 mL with 0.1 M PBS (pH 7.0) and then, different volumes of the diluted solution were transferred into each of a series of 25 mL volumetric flasks and diluted to the mark with PBS. The dopamine content was analyzed by the proposed method using the standard addition method. Result and Discussion Electrochemical profile of dopamine on La3+/ZnO/SPE Since the electrochemical behaviour of dopamine is pH-dependent, it is necessary to obtain the optimized pH value in order to achieve the accurate results. Experiments performed by use of the modified electrode at various pH values ranging from 2.0–9.0, revealed that the best results for electrooxidation of dopamine are obtained at pH 7.0. The cyclic voltammograms measured in 0.1 M PBS (pH 7.0) containing 60.0 μM dopamine, using La3+/ZnO/SPE and bare SPE are shown in Figure 1. According to CV results, the maximum oxidation of dopamine on La3+/ZnO/SPE occurs at 150 mV which is about 140 mV more negative compared with unmodified SPE. Effect of scan rate on the results According to Figure 2, increase of the potential scan rate leads to enhanced oxidation peak current values (Ip). In addition, there is a linear relationship between Ip and the square root of the potential scan rate (ν1/2) which demonstrates that the oxidation and reduction of dopamine is diffusion controlled. http://dx.doi.org/10.5599/jese.674 J. Electrochem. Sci. Eng. 9(3) (2019) 187-195 DOPAMINE ELECTROCHEMICAL SENSOR 190 Fig. 1. Cyclic voltammograms of (a) La3+/ZnO/SPE and (b) bare SPE in 0.1 M PBS (pH 7.0) in the presence of 60.0 μM dopamine at the scan rate 50.0 mVs-1. Fig. 2. Cyclic voltammograms of La3+/ZnO/SPE in 0.1 M PBS (pH 7.0) containing 60.0 μM dopamine at various scan rates; numbers 1-9 correspond to 10, 30, 50, 70, 100, 200, 400, 600 and 800 mV s-1. Inset: variation of anodic and cathodic peak currents vs. ν1/2. Chronoamperometric (CA) analysis The analysis of CA for dopamine samples was performed by use of La3+/ZnO/SPE vs. Ag/AgCl/KCl (3.0 M) at 0.2 V. CA results for different concentrations of dopamine in PBS (pH 7.0) are demonstrated in Figure 3. The Cottrell equation for CA analysis of electroactive moieties under mass transfer limited conditions is as follow [46]: I =nFAD1/2cbπ-1/2t-1/2 Somayeh Tajik et al. J. Electrochem. Sci. Eng. 9(3) (2019) 187-195 http://dx.doi.org/10.5599/jese.674 191 where D represents the diffusion coefficient, cm2 s-1, and cb is the bulk concentration of analyte, mol cm−3. Experimental results of I vs. t−1/2 are plotted in Figure 3A, with the best fits for different concentrations of dopamine. The resulted slopes corresponding to straight lines in Fig. 3A were then plotted against the concentration of dopamine (Figure 3B). The mean value of D was determined to be 1.15×10−6 cm2 s-1 according to the resulting slope and Cottrell equation. Fig. 3. Chronoamperograms obtained at La3+/ZnO/SPE in 0.1 M PBS (pH 7.0) for different concentrations of dopamine. The numbers 1–4 correspond to 0.1, 0.3, 0.6, and 1.0 mM of dopamine. Insets: (A) Plots of I vs. t-1/2 obtained from chronoamperograms 1–4. (B) Plot of slopes of straight lines against dopamine concentration. Calibration curves Based on the resulting peak currents of dopamine by use of La3+/ZnO/SPE, the quantitative analysis of dopamine was done in 0.1 M PBS (pH 7.0) (Figure 4). The modified electrode (La3+/ZnO/SPE) as a working electrode in the range of dopamine concentration in 0.1 M PBS was used in differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) due to the advantages of DPV including the improved sensitivity and better performance in analytical applications. According to the results, a linear relationship exists between the peak currents and concentrations of dopamine within the concentration range of 0.15 to 300.0 μM with the correlation coefficient of 0.9992. The detection limit was obtained as 0.08 μM. Table 1. shows a comparison of the analytical figures of merit of the proposed method with some other modified electrodes for the determination of dopamine. http://dx.doi.org/10.5599/jese.674 J. Electrochem. Sci. Eng. 9(3) (2019) 187-195 DOPAMINE ELECTROCHEMICAL SENSOR 192 Fig. 4. DPVs of La3+/ZnO/SPE in 0.1 M (pH 7.0) containing different concentrations of dopamine. Numbers 1– 8 correspond to 0.15, 2.5, 10.0, 30.0, 60.0, 100.0, 200.0 and 300.0 µM of dopamine. Inset: Plot of peak current as a function of dopamine concentration in the range of 0.15-300.0 µM. Table 1. Comparison of the efficiency of some modified electrodes used in the electro-oxidation of dopamine Electrode Modifier method LOD, M LDR, M Ref. Glassy carbon Carbon nanohorns/poly(glycine) Voltammetry 8-3.0×10 4-2.8×10 –6-1.0×10 47 Carbon fiber Reduced graphene oxide Voltammetry 7−10×7.7 −42.24×10–−61.4×10 48 Glassy carbon l-tyrosine (l-Tyr) covalently functionalized graphene oxide (GO) composite Voltammetry 7-102.8× 4-10×5.0 –6-10×1.0 49 Glassy carbon Graphene quantum dots Voltammetry 7−10×1.15 4−10×1.5 – 6−10×1.0 50 Graphite screen printed /ZnO nanoflower3+La Voltammetry 8−10×8.0 −43.0 × 10 – −71.5×10 This work Interference study The influence of various substances as compounds potentially interfering with the determination of dopamine was studied in the presence of 75.0 µM dopamine. The tolerance limit was defined as the maximum concentration of the interfering substance that caused an error less than ±5 % in the determination of dopamine. According to the results, uric acid, L-serine, L-phenylalanine, ethanol, benzoic acid, isoproterenol, methanol, serotonin, L-asparagine, acetaminophen, NADH, saccharose, urea, glucose, L-lysine, L-glycine, carbidopa, caffeine, levodopa, fructose, L-threonine, lactose, L-histidine, L-proline, S2−, Mg2+, SO42−, NH4+, F− and Al3+ did not show interference in the determination of dopamine. Somayeh Tajik et al. J. Electrochem. Sci. Eng. 9(3) (2019) 187-195 http://dx.doi.org/10.5599/jese.674 193 Analysis of real samples The applicability of this modified electrode in the determination of real samples was assessed through the determination of dopamine in dopamine ampoule using the described method. In order to perform this analysis, standard addition method was employed, and the results are listed in Table 2. Accordingly, the results of dopamine recovery are satisfactory, and the reproducibility of the results is proved by the mean relative standard deviation (R.S.D.). Table 2. Application of La3+/ZnO/SPE for determination of dopamine in dopamine ampoule (n=5) c / µM (spiked) c / µM (found) Recovery, % RSD, % 0 5.0 - 3.2 2.5 7.4 98.6 1.8 7.5 12.7 101.6 2.5 12.5 17.9 102.3 2.8 17.5 22.3 99.1 3.1 The repeatability and stability of La3+/ZnO/SPE The long-term stability of the La3+/ZnO/SPE was evaluated over 3-week period. After the modified electrode was stored for 3 weeks in atmosphere at room temperature, the experiments were performed again. According to cyclic voltammograms, the peak potential for dopamine oxidation remained unchanged and a decrement of less than 2.5 % compared with initial response was observed. The antifouling properties of the modified electrode towards dopamine oxidation and its oxidation products were studied by recording CVs. Voltammograms were recorded in the presence of dopamine after cycling the potential 17 times at a scan rate of 50 mV s-1. 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