Highly efficient benzylamine functionalized graphene supported palladium for electrocatalytic hydrazine determination

In this study, an electrochemical sensor for hydrazine oxidation was synthesized using graphene functionalized by benzylarnine molecules (both para and meta) and subsequently palladium (denoted as rGO-PxDA-Pd and rGO-MxDA-Pd, respectively). The synthesized materials were characterized using Xray photon spectroscopy (XPS) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The TEM study suggested that the PdNPs was well dispersed on the surface of the rGO-PxDA-Pd rather than on the rGO-MxDA-Pd. The XPS confirm the benzylamine functionalization and Pd attachment. These materials were investigated using several electrochemical techniques including cyclic voltammetry, differential pulse voltammetry and chronoamperometry in 0.05 M phosphate buffer solution at pH 7.4. From these results, it is confirm that the rGO-PxDA-Pd is better catalyst than rGO-MxDA-Pd due to resonance, steric and aggregation effects. The superior hydrazine sensor, rGO-PxDA-Pd, appeared to exhibit a good linear range of 1 x 10(-6) M-7.4 x 10(-3) M and a detection limit of (S/N=3) 1.7 x 10(-7) M with a fast response time of 3 s. The selectivity of the rGO-PxDA-Pd for hydrazine was studied for a number of ions such as, Na+, Cl-, Ca+2, Mg+2, and SO4-2 and biomolecules such as glucose and ascorbic acid. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.