Abstract
Herein, a novel propafenone (PPF) carbon paste sensor fortified with copper oxide nanoparticles (CuONPs/CPEs) was constructed for sensitive differential voltammetric determination of PPF. At the CuONPs/CPEs surface, PPF molecule was irreversibly oxidized at with an anodic oxidation peak at 1.07 V following a diffusion reaction behavior accompanied by transferring two electrons and one proton. Molecular orbital calculations were estimated for the PPF molecule and its two main metabolites: 5-hydroxypropafenone (5OH-PPF) and N-depropylpropafenone (NOR-PPF), suggesting the oxidation of the amino group in the aliphatic side chain of the parent PPF molecule and its metabolites. Conditions for experimentation and instrumentation that impact the performance of the method under cyclic and differential pulse voltammetric conditions, such as amount of modifier, pH, and scan rate, were studied and optimized. According to the electrocatalytic activity of CuONPs, significant enhancement of the peak current was recorded with linear calibration curves covering the PPF concentration ranged from 5 to 745 ng mL(-1) with the limit of detection reaching 1.87 ng mL(-1). Next, the introduced CuONPs/CPEs sensors were tested for differential pulse voltammetric quantification of PFF in dosage form and biological fluids without any special preconcentration or pretreatment steps. The proposed sensor produced satisfactory results that were totally statistically relevant.