Voltammetric Determination of L‐Dopa on Poly(3,4‐ethylenedioxythiophene)‐Single‐Walled Carbon Nanotube Composite Modified Microelectrodes

In the present communication, it is shown that platinum microelectrodes electrochemically coated with a composite of poly(3,4‐)ethylenedioxythiophene and single‐walled carbon nanotubes (PEDOT/SWNT) enable determinations of 3,4‐dihydroxy‐L ‐phenylalaines (L ‐dopa) in neutral phosphate buffer solutions containing an excess of ascorbic acid. The interpenetrated networked nanostructure of the composite was characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and Raman spectroscopy. It is shown that the presence of the composite gives rise to an increase in the electroactive area of an order of magnitude in compared to the area for the bare microelectrodes. The composite film‐coated microelectrode, which yielded reversible cyclic voltammograms for the ferro/ferricyanide redox couple for scan rates between 0.01 and 0.10 V s^?1, also gave rise to two well‐resolved oxidation peaks for L ‐dopa and ascorbic acid (AA). The latter effect, which was not seen in the absence of the composite, enabled differential pulse voltammetric determinations of L ‐dopa in the concentration range between 0.1 to 20 μM with a detection limit of 100 nM.