Electrochemical Analysis of Food additive Vanillin using Poly (Aspartic Acid) Modified Graphene and Graphite composite Paste Sensor

Vanillin (VLN) is generally used in bakery food products as an aroma enhancer and flavoring agent. Hence it is important to develop a powerful and rapid tool to monitor the concentration of VLN levels concerning food safety. In this paper, a simple sensor was proposed by electropolymerized Aspartic acid (ASP) modified on Graphene and Graphite composite paste electrode (PASPMGN/CPE) for the detection of VLN by differential pulse voltammetry (DPV). PASPMGN/CPE ranked to have high electrocatalytic kinetics towards electro-oxidation of VLN, in optimized conditions. The electrochemical process of VLN is portrayed to be irreversible and adsorption-controlled kinetics by the cyclic voltammetry (CV) method. The surface features were studied using Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FE-SEM), Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDX), Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) and CV. From DPV results, the oxidative peak current showed linear growth toward the concentration of VLN ranging from 1.0 μM to 15.0 μM with a limit of detection and quantification of 4.85 μM and 16.2 μM. The modified sensor attained to be highly selective with common possible interferents. PASPMGN/CPE was efficient in detecting VLN in vanilla pods, essence and bakery product samples.