ZnO/B-g-C3N4 Nanoplatelet/Nanosheet Heterostructures for the Electrochemical Detection of Metol in Real Sample Analysis

TL;DR: Researchers develop a low-cost electrochemical sensor using ZnO/B-g-C3N4 heterostructures for metol detection in real samples, achieving a low detection limit of 8.6 nM, high sensitivity, and excellent selectivity, with practical feasibility demonstrated in various environmental and biological samples.

Abstract: One of the most important organic molecules is metol [4-(methylamino)phenol sulfate], which finds extensive usage in various applications as a monochromatic material. People, plants, and animals are all affected by it, and it raises serious environmental concerns. Developing a straightforward, quick, affordable, sensitive, and hands-on technique for metol determination in water bodies is of the utmost importance in the current scenario. A low-cost fabrication strategy is presented in this work for the synthesis of a zinc oxide nanoplatelet (ZnO) embedded into boron-doped carbon nitride nanosheet materials (ZnO/2D-BCN) utilizing a high-performance electrochemical sensor. The quantitative and qualitative information about the nanostructure of ZnO/2D-BCN were systematically analyzed further by using standard spectroscopic techniques such as XPS, XRD, FT-IR, EDAX, and Raman spectroscopy. 2D-nonstructural was observed to have a nanoplatelet/nanosheet through FE-SEM and TEM. Furthermore, electrochemical sensors’ performance was analyzed by using cyclic and differential pulsed voltammetry techniques. The fabricated ZnO/2D-BCN has peculiar intrinsic structural features, both connectivity and characteristic synergistic effect of B-dopants 2D-structure, which perturb mass transport with highly efficient electrochemical pathways. In addition, the electrochemical sensors of metol and its electrocatalytic mechanism were scrutinized further, which confirmed a fast electron transfer event. The as-prepared ZnO/2D-BCN exposed superior sensing conclusion through LOD (8.6 nM) in a wide-ranging linear 0.039–1617 (μM) as well as a remarkable sensitivity of 0.804 μA μM–1 cm–2. Additionally, other sensing parameters such as remarkable repeatability, electrodes’ reproducibility, materials’ stability, and a remarkable selectivity toward metol have been performed. Furthermore, the practical feasibility of as-made ZnO/2D-BCN/GCE has been inspected with biological and environment samples such as blood serum, human urine, river, pond, industry, and tap samples as a real sample, revealing excellent rational recovery outcomes.