Electrochemical Behavior and Determination of Uric Acid at Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube Modified Gold Electrodes

The voltammetric behavior of uric acid was studied at a single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) modified gold electrode. Uric acid can effectively accumulate at this electrode and produce an anodic peak at about 0.45 V (vs. SCE) in pH 5.0 sodium acetate buffer solutions (HAc-NaAc). The experimental parameters, such as solution pH, accumulation time, and amount of SWNT, were optimized for determination. Under the optimum conditions, the anodic peak current is linear to the uric acid concentration over the range of 1.0×10⁻⁷ M to 2.5×10⁻⁵ M with a correlation coefficient of 0.998. The detection limit was 5.0×10⁻⁸ M for 60 s accumulation. The electrode could be easily regenerated and exhibited good stability. A 5.0×10⁻⁶ M uric acid solution was measured ten times using the same electrode, and the relative standard deviation of the peak current was 1.3%. This method was successfully applied to the determination of uric acid in human urine samples, and the recovery was 97–99%. The feasibility for simultaneous determination of xanthine, ascorbic acid and uric acid was discussed. These species did not interfere with each other in a certain concentration range. The influence of some surfactants on the anodic peak was also examined.