A novel electrochemical method for amoxicillin detection under photoirradiation: Application in tap water and wastewater samples

In this paper, we report a novel sensing strategy for amoxicillin (AMX) detection based on photoinduced electron transfer (PET) between excited molecule of AMX and CPE electrode. The AMX molecule was activated by ultraviolet irradiation, leading to a product with lower energy that acted as an electron donor in the CPE system. It has been found that the electrochemical response was improved by the exposition of homogeneous solution to UV photoirradiation. The influence of several parameters such as temperature and exposure time to UV irradiation was studied using voltammetry, chronoamperometry, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and UV-visible spectroscopy. Electrochemical method for AMX detection showed linearly enhanced current by increasing the AMX concentration from 1.0 x 10-6 mol/L to 4.0 x 10-5 mol/L and 6.0 x 10-5 mol/L to 2.0 x 10-4 mol/L with a detection limit of 7.86 x 10-7 mol/L (S/N = 3) under optimized conditions. The method investigated based on a low-cost and high sensitivity has been successfully applied in the determination of AMX in tap water and wastewater samples.