Abstract
An easy and reliable wet-chemical method was used to synthesize iron oxide doped zinc oxide nanoparticles (Fe3O4@ZnO NPs) at a low-temperature under alkaline medium. The electrochemical characteristics of Fe3O4@ZnO NPs were investigated by using different electrochemical techniques such as UV-vis, FTIR, XRD, FESEM, XEDS, and XPS. A sensor was fabricated by deposition of a thin covering of Fe3O4@ZnO NPs onto a flat dried glassy carbon electrode (GCE) with a polymer matrix with conducting characteristics (Nafion, Nf). l-Aspartic acid and glycine were detected simultaneously by using the modified GCE/Fe3O4@ZnO NPs/Nf sensor in enzyme free conditions. Calibration curves were found to be linear for l-aspartic acid (R-2 = 0.9593) and glycine (R-2 = 0.8617) over a broad range of detected bio-molecule concentration (100.0 pM to 100.0 mM). The analytical sensing parameters, for example sensitivity, linear dynamic range (LDR), limit of detection (LOD), and limit of quantification (LOQ), of the proposed sensor (GCE/Fe3O4@ZnO NPs/Nf) were calculated at two potentials (+0.4 V and +0.7 V) from the calibration plot for l-aspartic acid (126.58 pM mu M-1 cm(2), 100.0 pM to 10.0 mu M, approximate to 97.5 pM, and 325.0 mM) and glycine (316.46 pM mu M-1 cm(2), 1.0 mu M to 1.0 mM, approximate to 13.5 pM, and 450.0 mM), respectively, by using a reliable current-voltage (I-V) technique. The synthesis of Fe3O4@ZnO NPs by means of a wet-chemical route is a good advancement for the development of doped nanomaterial based sensors from the perspective of enzyme-free detection of biological molecules in health-care areas. This proposed GCE/Fe3O4@ZnO NPs/Nf sensor was used for the particular detection of l-aspartic acid and glycine in real samples (human and rabbit serum and urine) and found to achieve reasonable and accepted results.