A sensitive capsaicin sensor was constructed based on a poly(sodium 4-styrenesulfonate) functionalized graphite modified screen printed electrode (PSS-Grp/SPE) in this study. The PSS-Grp and poly(diallyldimethylammonium chloride) functionalized graphite (PDDA-Grp) were easily synthesized by interacting Grp with PSS and PDDA through sonication, and resulted in negative and with positive charges on the surface, respectively. The prepared PSS-Grp and PDDA-Grp were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and ultraviolet and visible spectroscopy (UV-vis). The electrochemical performance of PSS-Grp in a 50 μM capsaicin solution presented a current density of 33 μA cm-2, which was much higher than the PDDA-Grp of 1.5 μA cm-2. Our study showed that capsaicin could interact better with strong negative charges on the PSS-Grp/SPE surface to give a higher electrochemical response. The direct electrochemical sensing of capsaicin was achieved at PSS-Grp/SPE using differential pulse stripping voltammetry (DPSV) under the optimized conditions.
Keywords: Capsaicin determination; differential pulse stripping voltammetry; graphite; poly(sodium 4-styrenesulfonate); screen-printed electrode.