Hydrothermal synthesis of CeO2 nanoparticles and its application in electrochemical detection of nitrofurantoin antibiotics

In recent years, antibiotics have been considered emerging pollutants due to their continuous input and their persistence in the aquatic ecosystem, even at low concentrations. The present work focuses on the successful hydrothermal synthesis and characterization of CeO2 nanoparticles for the electrochemical detection of nitrofurantoin (NFT) antibiotic. Their physicochemical properties were studied by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and UV-Vis spectroscopy. The average particle size and the energy bandgap of CeO2 nanoparticles were found to be 9.59 nm and 3.3 eV, respectively. Furthermore, electrochemical analysis showed that the developed CeO2 -based electrode showed improved electrocatalytic activity towards the oxidation of nitrofurantoin (NFT) compared to the bare electrode. The limit of detection (LOD) was obtained as 7.81 μM from the calibration curve. Hence, these results corroborate that the CeO2 nanoparticles modified electrode can serve as a novel NFT electrocatalyst.