Abstract:

A portable electrochemical sensor based on gold nanoparticles has been developed for the on-site and rapid detection of chloramphenicol in facial masks. Herein, gold nanoparticles were electrochemically deposited on the surface of the portable and disposable screen-printed electrode with a deposition potential of -0.6 V and a deposition time of 20 s. Results show that the electrocatalytic performance of the chloramphenicol electrochemical sensor modified with gold nanoparticles is significantly enhanced compared with the bare electrode. The pH of the buffer solution was optimized and different concentrations of chloramphenicol were detected under optimal conditions. Results show that when the concentration of chloramphenicol is in the range of 0.02-0.5 mmol/L, the peak current signal is linearly related to the concentration of chloramphenicol, with the limit of detection of 0.005 mmol/L. In order to further evaluate the feasibility of this method, this paper took the commercially available facial masks as the real samples for the recovery experiment. Results show that the recoveries of chloramphenicol at the three spiked levels are from 106.01% to 110.59%, and the relative standard deviation is less than 3.66% （n=3）. Adopting the hand-held electrochemical workstation equipped with Bluetooth, the corresponding analysis data can be received wirelessly in real time on a smartphone, which provides a new research idea for the on-site and rapid detection of chloramphenicol in facial masks.

Key words: chloramphenicol, gold nanoparticles, electrochemical sensor, on-site and rapid detection, facial mask