Simultaneous voltammetric determination of dopamine and epinephrine in human body fluid samples using a glassy carbon electrode modified with nickel oxide nanoparticles and carbon nanotubes within a dihexadecylphosphate film

Abstract

A simple and highly selective electrochemical method was developed for the single or simultaneous determination of dopamine (DA) and epinephrine (EP) in human body fluids using a glassy carbon electrode modified with nickel oxide nanoparticles and carbon nanotubes within a dihexadecylphosphate film using square-wave voltammetry (SWV) or differential-pulse voltammetry (DPV). Using DPV with the proposed electrode, a separation of ca. 360 mV between the peak reduction potentials of DA and EP present in binary mixtures was obtained. The analytical curves for the simultaneous determination of dopamine and epinephrine showed an excellent linear response, ranging from 7.0 × 10⁻⁸ to 4.8 × 10⁻⁶ and 3.0 × 10⁻⁷ to 9.5 × 10⁻⁶ mol L⁻¹ for DA and EP, respectively. The detection limits for the simultaneous determination of DA and EP were 5.0 × 10⁻⁸ mol L⁻¹ and 8.2 × 10⁻⁸ mol L⁻¹, respectively. The proposed method was successfully applied in the simultaneous determination of these analytes in human body fluid samples of cerebrospinal fluid, human serum and lung fluid.