Aluminium MOF fabricated electrochemical sensor for the ultra-sensitive detection of hydroquinone in water samples

An electrochemical sensor based on Al-MOF (CAU-1-MOF) fabricated glassy carbon electrode (GCE) was utilized for hydroquinone (HQ) detection, an environmental pollutant. The CAU-1 MOF was synthesized by simple heating approach and characterized by FT-IR spectroscopy, XRD, SEM and B.E.T. techniques. The FT-IR results revealed the presence of CO vibration for CAU-1, which proved the incorporation of the amino-terephthalic acid into CAU-1. The XRD of the synthesized CAU-1-MOF was in good agreement with the existing CAU-1 (CCDC: 723320). Further, CAU-1 showed rod-shaped morphology with 280 nm size in average. Besides, CAU-1 had a huge surface area, 1349 m2 g−1 and a micropore volume, 0.41 cm3 g−1. The CAU-1 MOF was successfully fabricated on GCE using nafion as a binder and its electrochemical behaviour was investigated. The electrochemical behaviour of HQ was investigated at GCE/CAU-1 and studied its oxidation kinetics. The GCE/CAU-1 showed higher oxidation current for HQ than the bare GCE. Besides, this sensor shows good selectivity and anti-interference activities in HQ detection with the lowest detection limit, 0.067 µM and excellent sensitivity, 1471.4 µA/mM cm2. Furthermore, the proposed sensor was utilized in the determination of HQ in water samples and exhibited good recovery of 99.34%–103.93%, which suggested the practicability and reliability of the sensor, GCE/CAU-1 in the real-life application.