Highly Sensitive Electrochemical Sensor for the Detection of Hydroquinone and Catechol Based on Biomass Derived Activated Carbon

Abstract

Hydroquinone and catechol as the common phenols, they are commonly found in industrial effluents, due to their toxicity it is very important to determination of two isomers. In this research, the easy operation and highly sensitive analytic method proposed to the detection for hydroquinone and catechol. Activated carbon was synthesized by high temperature carbonization method with alkali activation. Some characterization methods were used to characterize the activated carbon and electrochemical techniques were performed to illuminate the electrochemical redox process. Both anodic and cathodic peak for hydroquinone and catechol were appearing simultaneously at activated carbon modified electrode. Under the optimized conditions, the linear range was between 1 μM to 250 μM for hydroquinone and catechol, the lowest detection limit was 0.023 μM and 0.025 μM (S/N = 3), respectively. This electrochemical sensor reveals the good selectivity, excellent stability and repeatability; also successfully used to detection of hydroquinone and catechol in real tap water and appear a high recovery rate. Therefore activated carbon has proved to be a promising electrode modification material in electrochemical determination of phenol isomers.