Development of Simple Electrochemical Sensor for Selective Determination of Methadone in Biological Samples Using Multi‐walled Carbon Nanotubes Modified Pencil Graphite Electrode

The electrochemical sensor was developed for determination of methadone (MTD) using multi‐walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) modified pencil graphite electrode (MWCNT‐PGE). It was found that the oxidation peak current of MTD at the MWCNT‐PGE was greatly improved compared with that of the bare‐PGE. At the MWCNT‐PGE, well‐defined anodic peak of MTD was observed at about 0.7 V (in pH 7 solution). The influence of several parameters on the determination of MTD was investigated. At optimum experimental conditions, differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) was used for determination of MTD, which exhibited a linear calibration graph of Ip versus MTD concentration in the range of 0.1–15 µM with a correlation coefficient of 0.9992. The calculated detection limit for S/N = 3 was 87 nM. It has been shown that the peaks obtained for oxidation of ascorbic acid (AA), uric acid (UA) and MTD in their mixture could be well resolved by differential pulse voltammetry, permitting us to develop a sensitive and selective electrochemical sensor for determination of MTD in the presence of AA and UA. Finally, MWCNT‐PGE was used for determination of MTD in biological samples, such as human serum and urine, using the standard addition procedure and the results were quite promising.