Creative synthesis of pH-dependent nanoporous pectic acid grafted with acrylamide and acrylic acid copolymer as an ultrasensitive and selective riboflavin electrochemical sensor in real samples.

In current research, an innovative pectic acid was grafted with poly (acrylamide-co-acrylic acid) [PA-g-poly (AAm-co-AA)] nanoporous membrane using a free radical-mediated grafting copolymerization process. The optimized parameters for the grafting copolymerization reaction such as initiator concentration, monomer concentrations, polymerization reaction time, and temperature were studied. Additionally, the solid content, graft percentage, and conversion were calculated. The unique polymeric membrane was characterized using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), thermal gravimetry (TG), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) supported by energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). The formulated novel PA-g-poly (AAm-co-AA) had a nanoporous structure with a diameter of 113 nm. pH-dependent swelling and biodegradation measurements were also studied. The electrochemical characterizations of PA-g-poly (AAm-co-AA) were conducted through cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). Furthermore, the screen-printed electrode (SPE) was modified with pure PA and the new generation of its grafted polymeric nanoparticles to detect and quantify the concentration of riboflavin (RF) in real samples using cyclic voltammetry (CV) and differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) techniques. The modified electrode showed two linear concentration ranges from 0.01 - 2 nM and 2 - 90 nM with low detection limits (LODs) of 0.004 and 0.97 nM, respectively, demonstrating high sensitivity. Besides, the fabricated sensor exhibited more selectivity, simplicity, great reproducibility, repeatability, and good stability. Finally, the PA-g-poly (AAm-co-AA)-modified SPE based sensor was effectively used in real sample analysis of egg yolk, milk, and vitamin B2 drugs with good recovery rates.