Glassy carbon electrode modified with horse radish peroxidase/organic nucleophilic-functionalized carbon nanotube composite for enhanced electrocatalytic oxidation and efficient voltammetric sensing of levodopa.

A novel and selective enzymatic biosensor was designed and constructed for voltammetric determination of levodopa (L-Dopa) in aqueous media (phosphate buffer solution, pH=7). Biosensor development was on the basis of to physically immobilizing of horse radish peroxidase (HRP) as electrochemical catalyst by sol-gel on glassy carbon electrode modified with organic nucleophilic carbon nanotube composite which in this composite p-phenylenediamine (pPDA) as organic nucleophile chemically bonded with functionalized MWCNT (MWCNT-COOH). The results of this study suggest that prepared bioorganic nucleophilic carbon nanotube composite (HRP/MWCNT-pPDA) shows fast electron transfer rate for electro oxidation of L-Dopa because of its high electrochemical catalytic activity toward the oxidation of L-Dopa, more--NH2 reactive sites and large effective surface area. Also in this work we measured L-Dopa in the presence of folic acid and uric acid as interferences. The proposed biosensor was characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX), FT-IR spectroscopy and cyclic voltammetry (CV). The differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) was used for determination of L-Dopa from 0.1 μM to 1.9 μM with a low detection limit of 40 nM (for S/N=3) and sensitivity was about 35.5 μA/μM. Also this biosensor has several advantages such as rapid response, high stability and reproducibility.