Ag ion irradiated based sensor for the electrochemical determination of epinephrine and 5-hydroxytryptamine in human biological fluids

A promising and highly sensitive voltammetric method has been developed for the first time for the determination of epinephrine (EP) and 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) using 120 MeV Ag ion irradiated multi-walled carbon nano tube (MWCNT) based sensor. The MWCNT were irradiated at various fluences of 1e12, 3e12 and 1e13 ions cm⁻² using palletron accelerator. The simultaneous determination of EP and 5-HT has been carried out in phosphate buffer solution of pH 7.20 using square wave voltammetry and cyclic voltammetry. Experimental results suggested that irradiation of MWCNT by Ag ions enhanced the electrocatalytic activity due to increase in effective surface area and insertion of Ag ions, leading to a remarkable enhancement in peak currents and shift of peak potentials to less positive values as compared to the unirradiated MWCNT (pristine). The developed sensor exhibited a linear relationship between peak current and concentration of EP and 5-HT in the range 0.1–105 μM with detection limit (3σ/b) of 2 nM and 0.75 nM, respectively. The practical utility of irradiation based MWCNT sensor has been demonstrated for the determination of EP and 5-HT in human urine and blood samples.