Sodium dodecyl sulfate stabilized NiO nanoseeds: a potential procedure for ultra-sensitive determination of bentazone in vegetables

Pesticides are the most toxic substances that badly affect the quality of edible food products and the environmental sustainability. Bentazone has been globally considered as one of the most lethal pesticides claiming human life. For the determination of this pesticide, certain analytical procedures have been widely exploited, including electrochemical methods. The synthesis of NiO nanoseeds was carried out via aqueous chemical growth method using sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) as stabilizer that greatly enhanced the sensitivity and selectivity of the working electrode. The fabricated NiO nanostructures were directed for different characterization tools e.g., XRD, FE-SEM, and EDS that revealed phase purity, nanoseed morphology, and elemental composition of NiO. Cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) were used to examine the conductive nature and electrocatalytic behavior of NiO. Different parameters, such as scan rate of 70 mV/s and phosphate buffer (PB) electrolyte (pH 7), were optimized for the sensitive determination of bentazone. At optimized conditions, the modified electrode manifested phenomenal Ipa response under linear dynamic range from 0.1 to 60 µM with lower limit of detection (LOD) (1.2 nM). The analytical applicability of modified sensor was tested in vegetable samples with satisfactory recoveries. We believe that this novel method will be highly useful for the practicable and sensitive determination of hazardous pesticides.