Electrocatalytic Oxidation and Direct Determination of L-Tyrosine by Square Wave Voltammetry at Multi-wall Carbon Nanotubes Modified Glassy Carbon Electrodes

Abstract.

The electrochemical behavior of L-tyrosine was investigated at a multi-wall carbon nanotubes modified glassy carbon electrode. L-tyrosine itself showed a poor electrochemical response at the bare glassy carbon electrode; however, a multi-wall carbon nanotubes film fabricated on the glassy carbon electrode can directly enhance the electrochemical signal of L-tyrosine when applying cyclic voltammetry and square wave stripping voltammetry without any mediator. Cyclic voltammetry was carried out to study the electrochemical oxidation mechanism of L-tyrosine, which shows a totally irreversible process and an oxidation potential of 671 mV at the modified electrode and 728 mV at the bare electrode, ΔE_p = 57 mV. The anodic peak current linearly increases with the square root of scan rate in the low range, suggesting that the oxidation of L-tyrosine on the multi-wall carbon nanotubes modified electrode is a diffusion-controlled process. The square wave stripping voltammetry currents of L-tyrosine at the multi-wall carbon nanotubes modified electrodes increased linearly with the concentration in the range of 2.0 × 10⁻⁶–5.0 × 10⁻⁴ mol L⁻¹. The detection limit was 4.0 × 10⁻⁷ mol L⁻¹. The method is simple, quick, sensitive and accurate.