Graphene-like carbon nanosheets as a new electrode material for electrochemical determination of hydroquinone and catechol.

We report here graphene-like carbon nanosheets (GCN) as a new electrode material for the electrochemical determination of hydroquinone (HQ) and catechol (CC). The GCN were prepared from maltose using ammonia chloride as a blowing agent and cobalt nitrate as a graphitization catalyst precursor. The as-prepared GCN material shows high graphitization degree, abundant porosity, and large specific surface area. Two well-separated anodic peaks for HQ and CC are obtained at GCN modified glassy carbon electrode (GCE) with a peak-to-peak separation of 118mV. The redox peak currents of HQ and CC at GCN/GCE were much higher than those at bare GCE and reduced graphene oxide modified GCE. For differential pulse voltammetric detection of HQ and CC, the GCN/GCE shows linear response ranges of 1×10 ^-7 ̶ 3×10 ^-5 M for HQ and 5×10 ^-7 ̶ 5×10 ^-5 M for CC, with detection limits of 2×10 ^-8 M for HQ, and 5×10 ^-8 M for CC. Satisfactory recoveries were achieved for the determination of HQ and CC in real water samples.
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