Plant Material Protected Cobalt Oxide Nanoparticles: Sensitive Electro-catalyst for Tramadol Detection

Abstract In this research work, we report the synthesis of Co3O4 nanoparticles using plant extract of Duranta repens L. commonly referred as Golden Dew. The synthesized nanoparticles were analyzed for their structural and morphological properties after annealing process at 500⁰C. The characterization techniques used for the structural and morphological analysis included UV-Vis spectrophotometry, UV-Vis Diffused Reflectance Spectrophotometry, X-Ray Diffraction, Energy Dispersive Spectrometry and Scanning Electron Microscopy. After confirmation of phase and crystallinity, the 23 nm sized biogenic Co3O4 nanoparticles were used as a modifier on GCE surface for the detection of tramadol drug. The Co3O4 nanoparticles over the GCE surface result in the production of catalytic current which helps in the development of a sensitive and effective detection tool. The present work shows, the catalytic current production due to the presence of Co3O4 nanoparticles improved the detection process of tramadol with very low limit of detection found to be 0.001 µM, making modified electrode to be more sensitive. Certain parameters were optimized for making the detection process easy and to get best results for tramadol detection. The modified electrode was successfully applied for the quantitative analysis of tramadol in commercial pharmaceutical samples. For the first time the biogenic Co3O4 nanoparticles have been synthesized via green approach utilizing Duranta repens L as capping and stabilizing agent. The bio-synthesized nanoparticles manifested exceptional electrocatalytic properties for determination of tramadol. The present work not only manifested the facile green synthesis of Co3O4 nanoparticles which are environmental friendly, shows excellent catalytic proficiencies, but exhibits overwhelming and fluent determination process of tramadol with very low limit of detection than the reported papers.