Simple, fast and environmentally friendly method to determine ciprofloxacin in wastewater samples based on an impedimetric immunosensor

RSC Adv. 2020 Jan 8;10(4):1838-1847. doi: 10.1039/c9ra09083e.

Abstract

In this study an impedimetric immunosensor was developed in order to determine ciprofloxacin (CIP) in wastewater samples, an emergent contaminant widely found in wastewater. To achieve this, an anti-ciprofloxacin antibody was immobilized on the surface of a printed carbon electrode. Then, the developed immunosensor was applied in wastewater samples from Université Laval residences (Québec, Canada) through the load transfer resistance (R ct) using [Fe(CN)6]3-/4- as a redox probe, and the average CIP concentration was found to be 2.90 × 10-4 μg mL-1. The observed R ct changes presented a linear relationship from CIP concentrations of 10-5 to 1.0 μg mL-1, with detection and quantification limits of 2.50 × 10-6 and 7.90 × 10-6 μg mL-1, respectively. The immunosensor presented high selectivity and repeatability, as well as a good recovery rate in wastewater samples (97%). Significant interference with other compounds was not observed. The proposed method requires only 30 μL of sample without the use of organic solvents or preceding sample preparation and/or extraction techniques. Moreover, the method is fast: only 20 min of incubation followed by 2 min of analysis time was sufficient to obtain the CIP concentration. The method's estimated cost is U$ 2.00 per sample.