Nafion-Treated Nickel Oxide/Graphene (Nafion-NiOx/GP) Electrocatalysts for Dopamine Detection

Herein, (Nafion-treated) (30 wt%) NiOx/graphene (GP) were prepared at 250 ◦C and 450 ◦C and investigated as materials for dopamine electrochemical detection. Initially, characteriza tion of the samples was performed using high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) techniques. Subsequently, they underwent electrochemical evaluation using cyclic voltammetry, linear sweep voltammetry (LSV), differential pulse voltammetry (DPV), and chronoamperometry (CA) techniques. All electrochemical measurements of the dopamine oxidation reaction (DOR) were performed in a 0.1 M phosphate buffer solution (PBS) at pH of 7.00 and at temperature of 36.6 ◦C. It was found that Nafion addition to the electrocatalysts surface facilitates access of the cationic dopamine molecule to their active centers being attributed to Nafion cation permeability. Nafion-NiO250/GP exhibited higher activity towards the DORreaction. The limit of detection (LOD) for the lower linear range of 0.5–10 µM was calculated to be 0.8 µM, with a sensitivity of 3.086 µA µM−1cm−2. Furthermore, the Nafion NiO250/GP/GC electrode exhibited high selectivity towards DA, as well as good repeatabil ity and reproducibility with an acceptable level of deviation, and excellent storage stability. The six electrodes produced from the Nafion-NiO250/GP showed 8.28% reproducibility (RSD), indicating adequate behavior, while the same electrode after six measurements over a 30-day period showed an RSD of 5.50%, indicating a reliable electrode.