Zinc Oxide/Phosphorus-Doped Carbon Nitride Composite as Potential Scaffold for Electrochemical Detection of Nitrofurantoin
Faheem Ahmed,
Thangavelu Kokulnathan,
Ahmad Umar,
Sheikh Akbar,
Shalendra Kumar,
Nagih M. Shaalan,
Nishat Arshi,
Mohd Gulfam Alam,
Abdullah Aljaafari,
Adil Alshoaibi
Affiliations
Faheem Ahmed
Department of Physics, College of Science, King Faisal University, P.O. Box 400, Al-Ahsa 31982, Saudi Arabia
Thangavelu Kokulnathan
Department of Electro-Optical Engineering, National Taipei University of Technology, Taipei 106, Taiwan
Ahmad Umar
Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science and Arts and Promising Centre for Sensors and Electronic Devices (PCSED), Najran University, Najran 11001, Saudi Arabia
Sheikh Akbar
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
Shalendra Kumar
Department of Physics, College of Science, King Faisal University, P.O. Box 400, Al-Ahsa 31982, Saudi Arabia
Nagih M. Shaalan
Department of Physics, College of Science, King Faisal University, P.O. Box 400, Al-Ahsa 31982, Saudi Arabia
Nishat Arshi
Department of Basic Sciences, Preparatory Year Deanship, King Faisal University, P.O. Box 400, Al-Ahsa 31982, Saudi Arabia
Mohd Gulfam Alam
Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Islamic University of Madinah, Madinah 42351, Saudi Arabia
Abdullah Aljaafari
Department of Physics, College of Science, King Faisal University, P.O. Box 400, Al-Ahsa 31982, Saudi Arabia
Adil Alshoaibi
Department of Physics, College of Science, King Faisal University, P.O. Box 400, Al-Ahsa 31982, Saudi Arabia
Herein, we present an electrocatalyst constructed by zinc oxide hexagonal prisms/phosphorus-doped carbon nitride wrinkles (ZnO HPs/P-CN) prepared via a facile sonochemical method towards the detection of nitrofurantoin (NF). The ZnO HPs/P-CN-sensing platform showed amplified response and low-peak potential compared with other electrodes. The exceptional electrochemical performance could be credited to ideal architecture, rapid electron/charge transfer, good conductivity, and abundant active sites in the ZnO HPs/P-CN composite. Resulting from these merits, the ZnO HPs/P-CN-modified electrode delivered rapid response (2 s), a low detection limit (2 nM), good linear range (0.01–111 µM), high sensitivity (4.62 µA µM−1 cm2), better selectivity, decent stability (±97.6%), and reproducibility towards electrochemical detection of NF. We further demonstrated the feasibility of the proposed ZnO HPs/P-CN sensor for detecting NF in samples of water and human urine. All the above features make our proposed ZnO HPs/P-CN sensor a most promising probe for detecting NF in natural samples.