Abstract
The excess use of nimesulide (NIM) causes acute side effects to gastrointestinal, central nervous and genitourinary systems and hence its rapid, sensitive determination is highly important. We describe a robust electrochemical sensor based on electrochemically reduced graphene oxide nanoribbons (ER-GONRs) modified on a screen-printed carbon electrode (SPCE) for detecting NIM in pharmaceutical formulations and biological medium. Compared with parental multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), ER-GONRs possess rich edge defects, abundant functional groups, high area-normalized edge-plane structures and chemically active sites and hence they can be a superior electrocatalyst and signal amplifier for electroanalytical applications. ER-GONRs/SPCE exhibited excellent sensing performance towards NIM. The linear range was 1.0 × 10
−8
to 1.50 × 10
−3
M and the detection limit was 3.50 (±1.57) nM. In addition, the ER-GONRs/SPCE showed excellent real-time sensing applications in NIM tablet and human urine samples, which could find potential applicability in drug and clinical analysis. The combined advantages of SPCE technology and ER-GONRs make this method a robust, low-cost, reproducible, sensitive and easy-to-use sensor.