Highly sensitive determination of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug nimesulide using electrochemically reduced graphene oxide nanoribbons

Abstract

The excess use of nimesulide (NIM) causes acute side effects to gastrointestinal, central nervous and genitourinary systems and hence its rapid, sensitive determination is highly important. We describe a robust electrochemical sensor based on electrochemically reduced graphene oxide nanoribbons (ER-GONRs) modified on a screen-printed carbon electrode (SPCE) for detecting NIM in pharmaceutical formulations and biological medium. Compared with parental multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), ER-GONRs possess rich edge defects, abundant functional groups, high area-normalized edge-plane structures and chemically active sites and hence they can be a superior electrocatalyst and signal amplifier for electroanalytical applications. ER-GONRs/SPCE exhibited excellent sensing performance towards NIM. The linear range was 1.0 × 10⁻⁸ to 1.50 × 10⁻³ M and the detection limit was 3.50 (±1.57) nM. In addition, the ER-GONRs/SPCE showed excellent real-time sensing applications in NIM tablet and human urine samples, which could find potential applicability in drug and clinical analysis. The combined advantages of SPCE technology and ER-GONRs make this method a robust, low-cost, reproducible, sensitive and easy-to-use sensor.