Abstract
Surface modification of VGCF by polydopamine via self-polymerization which makes stable aqueous dispersion and high catalytic activity.
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•Non-covalent bio-inspired polydopamine (PDA) functionalization on VGCF.•Improved aqueous dispersion and electronic conductivity of VGCF by PDA.•PDA-VGCF significantly lower onset-potential and trace level detection to CAP.•PDA-VGCF electrode shows highly selective to CAP detection in food samples.
Antibiotic drugs are comprehensively used in treating infectious animals, mainly food-producing animals, which may severely affect other living organisms. Hence, it is necessary to develop a device to monitor trace level of these drug in food samples by a sensitive method. Carbon nanomaterials are usually fabricated as a disposable electrode in an electrochemical sensing application; however, its hydrophobicity nature causes poor electrode stability. An effective strategy is followed in this study to improve the aqueous dispersion of vapor-grown carbon fiber (VGCF) materials through the bio-inspired polydopamine (PDA) functionalization approach. The PDA functionalized VGCF (PDA-VGCF) is significantly characterized by spectroscopic and microscopic methods. The improved hydrophilicity of PDA-VGCF composite materials can offer an easy way to prepare catalyst slurry for the coating of a glassy carbon electrode (GCE) and used to determine the chloramphenicol (CAP) antibiotic drug. Interestingly, cyclic and differential pulse voltammetry studies are performed to observe the electrocatalysis of CAP using PDA-VGCF/GCE, displays a good linear response range (0.01–142 µM), lower detection limit (3 nM), and higher sensitivity (0.68 µAµM−1 cm−2) with long-time stability up to 30 days. Furthermore, PDA-VGCF/GCE shows an admirable selectivity while existing with other interference compounds and practical feasibility are also evaluated in apple juice, milk, and honey samples.