Well-Designed Construction of Yttrium Orthovanadate Confined on Graphitic Carbon Nitride Sheets: Electrochemical Investigation of Dimetridazole

Inorg Chem. 2021 Sep 6;60(17):13150-13160. doi: 10.1021/acs.inorgchem.1c01548. Epub 2021 Aug 25.

Abstract

Antibiotics are the most important drugs for people and animals to fight bacterial illnesses. Overuse of antibiotics has had unintended consequences, such as antibiotic resistance and ecosystem eradication owing to toxic chemical discharge, which have a negative influence on the biome. Herein, we report the synthesis of a hollow ellipsoid-shaped yttrium vanadate/graphitic carbon nitride (YVO4@CN) nanocomposite by a hydrothermal approach followed by a sonochemical method for the effective detection of dimetridazole (DMZ). The synergic and coupling effect between both the phases offer non-linear cumulative ramifications which can positively enhance the individual properties of the materials under consideration. This positive hybrid effect increases the conductivity, shortens the ion-diffusion pathway, enhances the electron/ion transportation, and provides more active sites and electron-conducting channels. The accurate optimization of the experimental conditions proposes good electrocatalytic activity for the YVO4@CN catalyst, exhibiting a good response toward DMZ detection. It reveals an extensive linear concentration range (0.001-153.3 and 176.64-351.6 μM), a low detection limit (0.8 nM), higher sensitivity (4.98 μA μM-1 cm-2), appreciable selectivity, increased operational stability (2200 s), and good cycle stability (60 cycles). The electrochemical performance of YVO4@CN indicates its practical application in real-time sample analysis of several families of nitroimidazole drugs.