Carbon nanotubes as a suitable material for electrochemical sensor used in voltammetric determinations of titanium

Abstract

We report the use of carbon nanotubes as a material for the preparation of an electrochemical sensor that acts as a substrate for film metal electrodes used in stripping voltammetry. The sensor is based on a mixture of multiwall carbon nanotubes, glassy carbon spherical powder, and epoxy resin. The properly selected composition of the sensor made it possible to obtain a new substrate, competitive in relation to glassy carbon, for creating film metal electrodes. In this work, the proposed new sensor was used to determine the trace amounts of Ti(IV) on the lead film electrode. Measurements were carried out with in situ mode in an acetate buffer by adsorption stripping voltammetry with the use of cupferron as a complexing agent. Linear response to Ti(IV) ions in the concentration range of 7 × 10–10–7 × 10–8 mol L−1 and the limit of detection (LODs) 2.4 × 10–10 were obtained, respectively. These promising results revealed that a mixture of carbon nanotubes, epoxy resin, and spherical glassy carbon powder used for the determination of titanium ions on PbFE might represent an important addition to existing electrochemical sensor technologies. The proposed procedure was successfully used as a new and powerful analytical tool for determination of Ti(IV) in horsetail extracts.