The development of fast, reliable, and cost-effective techniques for pharmaceutical compound analysis is an issue of paramount importance to the pharmaceutical industry, environmental sciences, and many other applications. In this work, a low-cost graphite sheet electrode (GSE) was used as a disposable working electrode. To this purpose, the GSE surface was subjected to a cold plasma discharge using a mixture of argon and O.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe development of a portable analytical procedure is described for rapid sequential detection and quantification of the explosives 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) and cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine (RDX) in forensic samples using a graphite sheet (GS). A single GS platform works as a collector of explosive residues and detector after its assembly into a 3D-printed cell. The detection strategy is based on cyclic square-wave stripping voltammetry.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGraphite sheet (GS) electrodes are flexible and versatile substrates for sensing electrochemical; however, their use has been limited to incorporate (bio)chemical modifiers. Herein, we demonstrated that a cold (low temperature) CO plasma treatment of GS electrodes provides a substantial improvement of the electrochemical activity of these electrodes due to the increased structural defects on the GS surface as revealed by Raman spectroscopy (I/I ratio), and scanning electron microscopy images. XPS analyses confirmed the formation of oxygenated functional groups at the GS surface after the plasma treatment that are intrinsically related to the substantial increase in the electron transfer coefficient (K values increased from 1.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF