The
synthesis of nanoscale metal oxide electrocatalysts is of significant
interest and a very active research area, which has an enormous impact
on developing new and cost-effective electrochemical antibiotic drug
sensors for food product safety and environmental aspects. In the
present work, we demonstrate the preparation of nanoscale Mn3O4 nanoparticles (NPs) through a polyol reduction method
and their use as electrode materials for chloramphenicol (CAP) determination
in food samples. Herein, we compared the catalytic efficiency of three
Mn3O4 NPs for CAP detection using the electrochemical
sensing method. Interestingly, the small particle size of Mn3O4 NPs modified glassy carbon electrodes (Mn3O4 NPs (i)/GCE) holds excellent electrocatalytic activity
toward CAP detection in terms of low limit of detection (LOD = 0.0087
μM) and good sensitivity (1.1000 μA μM–1·cm–2). The developed sensor shows good selectivity,
reproducibility, and significant cycle stability (84.8%). Moreover,
the developed sensor was successfully employed in milk samples for
CAP detection and validated by HPLC with good recovery outcomes at
lower concentrations.