Development of MoS2Flowers Adorned Pencil Graphite Electrode for Electro-Kinetic Investigations and Voltammetric Quantification of Anti-Epileptic Drug Levetiracetam

Abstract

Abstract The fast, accurate, and affordable determination of anti-epileptic drug levetiracetam (LEV) is the need of time for human health. In this study, an electrochemical sensor platform was proposed for the cost-effective and sensitive determination of the levetiracetam based on molybdenum sulfide nano-flowers adorned pencil graphite electrode (MoS2/PGE). The nano-flowers of MoS2 were prepared by a cost-effective one-step facile hydrothermal method and the morphology of synthesized MoS2 micro-flowers was characterized via FESEM, XRD, and EDS techniques. Under the optimized experimental conditions, cyclic, linear sweep, and square wave voltammograms of LEV were recorded. The diffusion-controlled electrochemical oxidation of LEV produced one well-defined irreversible peak in all voltammograms. The various electro-kinetics parameters like diffusion coefficient (Do =1.41×10− 5 cm2s− 1), heterogeneous rate constant (Kh=9.04×10− 4 cms− 1), electron transfer coefficient (α = 0.66), the surface area of the fabricated electrode (A = 0.0767 cm2) and surface coverage (Γo = 2.98×10− 11 molcm− 2) were evaluated for the oxidation of LEV at MoS2/PGE. The square wave stripping voltammetry (SWSV) method was optimized for the quantification of LEV in pharmaceutical samples. The oxidative peak current in SWSV methods varies linearly with LEV concentration within the range 72.0 to 130.0 µmolL− 1 with detection limit (LOD) value of 14.20 µmolL− 1. The proposed MoS2/PGE platform provides a sensitive, low cost and eco-friendly tool for the rapid detection of LEV in clinical samples.