Development of an electrochemical sensor for determination of chloramphenicol

Chloramphenicol is one of the antibiotic derivatives that are restricted for being used in the EU and USA. There are various chromatographic devices (HPLC, LC-MS-MS) or screening devices (ELISA) are used for the determination of chloramphenicol. However, these methods are expensive and involves time consuming preparation procedures for analysis, it is frequently pronounced that alternative methods should be investigated. In this study, it was aimed to develop an electrochemical sensor equipped with high sensitivity and selectivity against chloramphenicol, which can be used practically in a portable application to yield fast and reliable results. For this purpose, cyclic voltammetry and square wave voltammetry techniques were employed for the assessment of success of newly designed modified carbon paste electrodes with various compositions. While the graphite the major component of these carbon paste electrodes, graphene oxide and graphene were utilized as additives. The synthesis of graphene oxide was realized by modified Hummer method and the graphene was prepared with reduction process by means of hydrazinium hydroxide. The characterization of the synthesized samples was carried out by FTIR and XRD analyzes, and the voltammetric methods were used for evaluation of the sensing capabilities of prepared electrodes. As a result, chloramphenicol at 16.15 ppm could be determined.