Porous tal palm carbon nanosheets as a sensing material for simultaneous detection of hydroquinone and catechol

In this article, an electrochemical sensor was prepared for the simultaneous detection of hydroquinone (HQ) and catechol (CT) by incorporating porous tal palm carbon nanosheets (PTPCNS) as the modifier substance on the surface of glassy carbon electrode (GCE). Cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) were utilized to characterize the electrochemical properties of the designed (PTCNS/GCE) sensor. PTPCNS/GCE demonstrated excellent electro-catalytic property toward resolving the individual voltametric signal of HQ and CT from their mixture. Differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) was applied to quantify the lower limit of HQ and CT. The calculated limit of detection (LOD) was 0.15 µM for HQ with the linear range of 1–300 µM and 0.49 µM for CT with the corresponding linear range 5–225 µM obtained for the proposed sensor. The limit of quantification (LOQ) was found 0.51 µM and 1.63 µM for HQ and CT, respectively. Modified PTPCNS/GCE exhibited excellent selectivity towards HQ and CT even in presence of 10 folds potential interference. The practical applicability of the proposed sensor was analyzed in tap water sample with an excellent recovery of 98–104% for HQ and 99–102% for CT.