Green synthesis of curcumin-silver nanoparticle and its modified electrode assisted amperometric sensor for the determination of paracetamol

Contamination of paracetamol, a primary analgesic was wide spread in the water system that affects the eco-system. High-dosage of paracetamol to humans cause organ damages and showed adverse effect. It is important to monitor the paracetamol concentration in environmental and human samples periodically. Conventional methods associated with chromatography is found to be high-cost, time consuming and requires high-end instrumentation, Herein, we investigated the role of curcumin during bio-synthesis of silver nanoparticles. The curcumin functionalized silver nanoparticles were further chemically modifying on the electrode surface and the resulting modified electrode was applied for electrocatalytic oxidation of paracetamol. The experimental finding proved that the modified electrode is capable of sensing paracetamol by applying oxidation potential 0.4 V. Both the synthesised material and modified electrode surface were characterized for its physic-chemical properties using spectroscopy and microscopy techniques. The HR-TEM, FESEM and AFM results showed that the distribution of nanoparticle with the size range from 25 to 70 nm and the UV-Vis and Raman spectrophotometer characterization confirms the coordination between SNP and curcumin. Under optimized condition, in 0.1 M NH4Cl (pH 7) at the scan rate of 50 mVs-1. The modified electrode enhanced the sensitivity towards the detection of paracetamol in trace level. The modified electrode is capable of sensing paracetamol in a linear range between 0.59 × 10-6 and 342.1 × 10-6 M, with LOD of 0.29 μM, and linear regression equation of y = 0.092x+502.6 with a correlation coefficient of R2 = 0.996.