Green synthesis of manganese oxide nanoparticles for the electrochemical sensing of p-nitrophenol

Manganese oxide (MnO) NPs are widely used in contaminant sensing, drug delivery, data storage, catalysis and biomedical imaging. Green synthesis of NPs is important due to increased concern of environmental pollution. Green chemistry based synthesis of NPs is preferred due to its ecofriendly nature. In this study, MnO NPs of different sizes were synthesized in aqueous medium using clove, i.e., Syzygium aromaticum extract (CE) as reducing and stabilizing agents. These NPs were used for the electrochemical sensing of p-nitrophenol (PNP). The synthesis of MnO NPs was over in 30 min. MnO NPs of different sizes were obtained by varying metal ion concentration, metal ion volume ratio, CE concentration, CE volume ratio, and incubation temperature. Selectively, ~4 nm MnO NPs were used for electrochemical sensing of paranitrophenol. The MnO NPs modified gold electrodes detected PNP with good sensitivity, 0.16 µA µM−1 cm2. The limit of PNP detection was 15.65 µM. The MnO NPs prepared using CE based green chemistry approach is useful for PNP sensing. These NPs can also be useful for various in vivo applications in which the NPs come in human contact.