Electrochemical paraquat sensor based on lead oxide nanoparticles

Pranlekha Traiwatcharanon; Wilai Siriwatcharapiboon; Oratai Jongprateep; Chatchawal Wongchoosuk

doi:10.1039/d2ra02034c

Electrochemical paraquat sensor based on lead oxide nanoparticles

RSC Adv. 2022 May 30;12(25):16079-16092. doi: 10.1039/d2ra02034c. eCollection 2022 May 23.

Authors

Pranlekha Traiwatcharanon¹, Wilai Siriwatcharapiboon², Oratai Jongprateep³, Chatchawal Wongchoosuk¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Kasetsart University Bangkok 10900 Thailand chatchawal.w@ku.ac.th +662-942-8029 +662-562-5555.
² Department of Chemistry and Center of Excellence for Innovation in Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Kasetsart University Bangkok 10900 Thailand.
³ Department of Materials Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Kasetsart University Bangkok 10900 Thailand.

Abstract

1,1-Dimethyl-4,4-bipyridinium dichloride known as paraquat is a popular well-known herbicide that is widely used in agriculture around the world. However, paraquat is a highly toxic chemical causing damage to vital organs including the respiratory system, liver, heart, and kidneys and death. Therefore, detection of paraquat is still necessary to protect life and the environment. In this work, an electrochemical sensor based on lead oxide nanoparticles (PbO-NPs) modified on a screen-printed silver working electrode (SPE) has been fabricated for paraquat detection at room temperature. The PbO-NPs have been synthesized by using a sparking method via two Pb metal wires. The electrochemical paraquat sensors have been prepared by a simple drop-casting of PbO-NPs solution on the surface of the SPE. The PbO-NPs/SPE sensor exhibits a linear response in the range from 1 mM to 5 mM with good reproducibility and high sensitivity (204.85 μA mM^-1 cm^-2) for paraquat detection at room temperature. The PbO-NPs/SPE sensor shows high selectivity to paraquat over other popular herbicides such as glyphosate, glufosinate-ammonium and butachlor-propanil. The application of the PbO-NPs/SPE sensor is also demonstrated via the monitoring of paraquat contamination in juice and milk.