Development of novel 3D flower-like praseodymium molybdate decorated reduced graphene oxide: An efficient and selective electrocatalyst for the detection of acetylcholinesterase inhibitor methyl parathion

The development of highly selective and sensitive electrochemical sensor for miniatures level finding of poisonous organophosphorus pesticides (OPP) in food and aquatic system has turned a hottest issue to protect living things and ecosystem. For that reason, for the first time, we developed a novel electrochemical sensor for the trace level detection of hazardous OPP methyl parathion (MP) using 3D flower-like praseodymium molybdate (Pr6MoO12; PrM) decorated reduced graphene oxide (rGO) composite (PrM/rGO) modified glassy carbon electrode (GCE). The PrM/rGO composite were fabricated via simple hydrothermal process and the successful decoration of PrM on the surface of rGO sheets were unambiguously observed by SEM, EDX, elemental mapping and XPS techniques. Interestingly, the voltammetric results illustrated that the PrM/rGO composite exhibited an excellent electrocatalytic activity in terms of higher cathodic peak current and lower peak potential when compared with other modified electrodes. Furthermore, the PrM/rGO/GCE displayed wide linear response ranges (002-1.55; 1.55–114 μM), good sensitivity (166 μAμM−1cm−2), lower detection limit (1.8 nM) and excellent selectivity for the MP sensing. Besides, the composite material was successfully applied to the real sample analysis in various water and vegetable/fruits (spiked MP) samples for the determination of MP and the obtained recoveries are quite satisfactory.