Graphene oxides/multi-walled carbon nanotubes hybrid-modified carbon electrodes for fast and sensitive voltammetric determination of the anticancer drug 5-fluorouracil in spiked human plasma samples

The electrochemical oxidation of anticancer drug 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) at graphene oxides (GOs)/carbon nanotubes (CNTs) nanohybrid-modified screen-printed carbon and glassy carbon electrodes was studied by voltammetric techniques. The modified electrodes showed better performance toward the electro-oxidation and determination of 5-FU compared to CNTs-modified or GOs-modified electrodes. The oxidation peak current obtained at about + 1.156 V (vs. Ag/AgCl) from square wave voltammetry was linearly dependent on the 5-FU concentration in the ranges of 0.05–5 and 5–1200 µM in phosphate buffer solution of pH 7.0. The developed method was applied successfully to the electrochemical sensing of 5-FU in human plasma samples at micro-molar concentration levels with satisfactory results. It is hopeful that the developed method in the future can be used for the simple and fast determination of 5-FU in clinical test and pharmacokinetics.