Fabrication of Poly (Trans-3-(3-Pyridyl)Acrylic Acid)/Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes Membrane for Electrochemically Simultaneously Detecting Catechol and Hydroquinone

Fabao Luo; Shasha Fan; Maolin Sha; Deshun Cheng; Na Zhang; Chenxiao Jiang; Keying Zhang; Weiguang Fang; Kunyu Ji

doi:10.3390/membranes13070657

Fabrication of Poly (Trans-3-(3-Pyridyl)Acrylic Acid)/Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes Membrane for Electrochemically Simultaneously Detecting Catechol and Hydroquinone

Membranes (Basel). 2023 Jul 11;13(7):657. doi: 10.3390/membranes13070657.

Authors

Fabao Luo¹, Shasha Fan², Maolin Sha³, Deshun Cheng², Na Zhang², Chenxiao Jiang⁴, Keying Zhang², Weiguang Fang¹, Kunyu Ji¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Engineering, Hefei Normal University, Hefei 230061, China.
² Anhui Key Laboratory of Spin Electron and Nanomaterials of Anhui Higher Education Institues, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Suzhou University, Suzhou 234000, China.
³ School of Physics and Materials Engineering, Hefei Normal University, Hefei 230061, China.
⁴ Anhui Provincial Engineering Laboratory of Functional Membrane Materials and Technology, School of Chemistry and Materials Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China.

Abstract

Herein, conductive polymer membrane with excellent performance was successfully fabricated by integrating carboxylated multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) and poly (trans-3-(3-pyridyl) acrylic acid) (PPAA) film. The drop-casting method was employed to coated MWCNTs on the glassy carbon electrode (GCE) surface, and PPAA was then electropolymerized onto the surface of the MWCNTs/GCE in order to form PPAA-MWCNTs membrane. This enables the verification of the excellent performances of proposed membrane by electrochemically determining catechol (CC) and hydroquinone (HQ) as the model. Cyclic voltammetry experiments showed that the proposed membrane exhibited an obvious electrocatalytic effect on CC and HQ, owing to the synergistic effect of PPAA and MWCNTs. Differential pulse voltammetry was adopted for simultaneous detection purposes, and an increased electrochemical responded to CC and HQ. A concentration increase was found in the range of 1.0 × 10^-6 mol/L~1.0 × 10^-4 mol/L, and it exhibited a good linear relationship with satisfactory detection limits of 3.17 × 10^-7 mol/L for CC and 2.03 × 10^-7 mol/L for HQ (S/N = 3). Additionally, this constructed membrane showed good reproducibility and stability. The final electrode was successfully applied to analyze CC and HQ in actual water samples, and it obtained robust recovery for CC with 95.2% and 98.5%, and for HQ with 97.0% and 97.3%. Overall, the constructed membrane can potentially be a good candidate for constructing electrochemical sensors in environmental analysis.

Keywords: Poly(trans-3-(3-Pyridyl)acrylic acid); catechol; conductive membrane; hydroquinone; multi-walled carbon nanotubes.

Grants and funding

This research was funded by the National Key Research & Development Program of China (2022YFB3805303), Natural Science Foundation of University of Anhui Province (2022AH052120), the Natural Science Foundation of Anhui Province (2108085MB67), Suzhou University Development Fund and Research Platform (2021fzjj09, 2021XJPT06), Open Project of Anhui Engineering Laboratory for Medicinal and Food Homologous Natural Resources Exploration (YSTY2022019), and Open Project of Anhui Key Laboratory of Photoelectric-Magnetic Functional Materials and Anhui Key Laboratory of Functional Coordination Compounds (ZD2022002).