Determination of malachite green and leucomalachite green based on electrochemiluminescence of Ru(bpy)32+ at graphene oxide modified glassy carbon electrodes

The graphene oxide (GO) modified glassy carbon (GC) electrode has been employed for the determination of malachite green (MG) and leucomalachite green (LMG) based on the electrochemiluminescence (ECL) of Ru(bpy)32+. It gave a linear response over a concentration range of 1.0 × 10−16 to 1.0 × 10−12 mol L−1 for both MG and LMG. A remarkable detection limit of 1.0 × 10−16 mol L−1 can be reached for MG and LMG in 0.1 mol L−1 phosphate buffer (pH = 10), which is much lower compared to the other detection methods. To check its applicability, the proposed method was employed for the determination of MG and LMG spiked into pond water, giving a good reproducibility and stability. All these results show that it will be possible to develop an ECL detection procedure for MG/LMG at GO-modified GC electrodes.