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Study of carbon nanotube-rich impedimetric recognition electrode for ultra-low determination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in water

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Abstract

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been studied as an electrochemical recognition element for the impedimetric determination of priority polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in water, using hexocyanoferrate as a redox probe. For this goal, an indium tin oxide (ITO) electrode functionalized with a silane-based self-assembled monolayer carrying CNTs has been engineered. The electroanalytical method, which is similar to an antibody-antigen assay, is straightforward and exploits the high CNT–PAH affinity obtained via π–interactions. After optimizing the experimental conditions, the resulting CNT-based impedimetric recognition platform exhibits ultra-low detection limits (1.75 ± 0.04 ng·L−1) for the sum of PAHs tested, which was also validated by using a certified reference PAH mixture.

Schematic of an indium-tin-oxide (ITO) electrode functionalized with a silane-based self-assembled monolayer carrying carbon nanotubes (CNTs) as a recognition platform for the ultra-low determination of total polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in water via π–interactions using Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS).

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Acknowledgments

This work was funded by the ERC StG 2012-306826 e-GAMES. The authors also thank the DGI (Spain) project FANCY CTQ2016-80030-R, the Generalitat de Catalunya (2017-SGR-918) and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, through the “Severo Ochoa” Programme for Centers of Excellence in R&D (SEV-2015-0496). Dr. J. Muñoz gratefully acknowledges the “Juan de la Cierva” programme.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC), Campus de la UAB, 08193, Bellaterra, Spain

    Jose Muñoz, Cristina Navarro-Senent, Nuria Crivillers & Marta Mas-Torrent

  2. Networking Research Center on Bioengineering Biomaterials and Nanomedicine (CIBER-BBN), Campus de la UAB, 08193, Bellaterra, Spain

    Nuria Crivillers & Marta Mas-Torrent

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  1. Jose Muñoz
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  2. Cristina Navarro-Senent
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  3. Nuria Crivillers
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  4. Marta Mas-Torrent
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Correspondence to Marta Mas-Torrent.

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Muñoz, J., Navarro-Senent, C., Crivillers, N. et al. Study of carbon nanotube-rich impedimetric recognition electrode for ultra-low determination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in water. Microchim Acta 185, 255 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00604-018-2783-9

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