Sensitive and Selective Voltammetric Determination of Ciprofloxacin Using Screen-printed Electrodes Modified with Carbon Black and Magnetic-molecularly Imprinted Polymer

Abstract

Schematic representation of the screen-printed sensor modified with magnetic-MIP and carbon black for the determination of ciprofloxacin This work reports the construction of screen-printed electrode (SPE) modified with carbon black (CB) and magnetic Fe3O4 nanoparticles coated with molecularly imprinted polymer (mag@MIP) based on an alternative low-cost approach. The proposed device was used for the sensitive and selective voltammetric determination of the antibiotic ciprofloxacin. The results obtained from cyclic voltammetry pointed to the improvement of the SPE response toward the irreversible oxidation of ciprofloxacin after the modification of the electrode surface with CB-based film and the magnetic preconcentration of mag@MIP containing adsorbed ciprofloxacin molecules. Compared to the non-molecularly imprinted sensor (mag@NIP), the presence of cavities selective for ciprofloxacin recognition in the mag@MIP nanoparticles accounted for the improvement in analytical signal of the molecularly imprinted sensor. The application of differential pulse voltammetry for ciprofloxacin determination yielded a linear response in the concentration range of 0.5 to 7.0 μmol L−1. The repeatability and interference tests results showed that the proposed electrochemical sensor has good measurement accuracy and selectivity. The proposed device was applied for the voltammetric determination of ciprofloxacin in river water and synthetic urine samples, where recovery rates close to 100 % were recorded for all the samples. The quantification data obtained from the application of the proposed voltammetric method were quite consistent with those of the HPLC reference method.