Covalent modification of glassy carbon electrodes with glycine for voltammetric separation of dopamine and ascorbic acid

Glycine was covalently grafted on to a glassy carbon electrode (GCE) by amine cation radical formation in electrooxidation of the amino-containing compound. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and cyclic voltammetry proved the immobilization of glycine on the GCE. The modified electrode reduced the overpotentials of dopamine (DA) and ascorbic acid (AA) by approximately 0.15 V and 0.23 V, respectively, and resolved the overlapping voltammetric response of DA and AA into two well-defined voltammetric peaks in cyclic voltammetry (CV) or differential pulse voltammetry (DPV), unlike the unmodified GCE; this can be used for the simultaneous determination of these species in a mixture. The differential pulse peak current was linearly dependent on DA and AA concentration in the range 5 × 10^–6– 8 × 10^–4 mol L^–1 and 6 × 10^–5– 4 × 10^–3 mol L^–1, with correlation coefficients of 0.996 and 0.994, respectively. The detection limits (3δ) for DA and AA were 1.8 × 10^–6 mol L^–1 and 2.1 × 10^–5 mol L^–1, respectively. The modified electrode is very sensitive, selective and stable, and has been applied to the determination of DA and AA simultaneously in samples with satisfactory results. Received: 30 October 2000 / Revised: 9 March 2001 / Accepted: 13 March 2001