A synergetic and sensitive physostigmine pesticide sensor using copper complex of 3D zinc (II) phthalocyanine-SWCNT hybrid material

Abstract 2,3,9,10,16,17,23,24-Octakis (4-methyl-2,6-bis((prop-2-yn-1-yloxy)methyl)phenoxy) phthalocyaninato zinc(II) (Pc) bearing sixteen terminal ethynyl groups was synthesized and attached to SWCNT (Single-walled carbon nanotube) covalently to obtain three dimensional porous hybrid material (SWCNT-Pc 3D) and its copper complex (Cu-SWCNT-Pc 3D). The structural characterization and electrochemical sensor features of the Cu-SWCNT-Pc hybrid towards to physostigmine pesticide were performed. A fast, direct and suitable determination method for physostigmine detection was offered. The designed sensor, Cu-SWCNT-Pc 3D/GCE (glassy carbon electrode) shows sensitivity ca 1.8, 4.3 and 2.8 times more than that of SWCNT/GCE, SWCNT-Pc-noncovalent/GCE and SWCNT-Pc 3D/GCE in terms of peak heights while bare and Pc/GCE had almost no voltammetric response to 2 μM physostigmine in PBS at a pH of 7.0. The limit of detection and quantification of physostigmine determination with Cu-SWCNT-Pc 3D/GCE were found to be 53 and 177 nM in the range of 0.1–4.8 μM, respectively. This study demonstrated that the modification of the GCE with Cu-SWCNT-Pc 3D as an electrochemical sensor was acted as catalytic role toward physostigmine presence of other interfering pesticides as high sensitivity and selectivity. The electrochemical determination of physostigmine in real samples was performed under the optimized conditions, also accuracy of the electrochemical determination method was evaluated with HPLC as a standard determination method.