Electrochemical sensor for detecting pain reliever/fever reducer drug acetaminophen based on electrospun CeBiO_x nanofibers modified screen-printed electrode

A series of functional CeBiO_x nanofibers (NFs) with different Ce:Bi molar ratios were successfully prepared by a facile two-step synthetic procedure including electrospinning and calcination. After systematic characterization of their morphology and structure/composition using various advanced techniques, the as-synthesized CeBiO_x NFs were employed to modify screen-printed electrodes (SPEs) for the determination of fever reliever/pain reducer drug acetaminophen (AP) via both cyclic voltammetry (CV) and differential pulse voltammetry (DPV). The results showed that the electrocatalytic activity of CeBiO_x NFs was heavily dependent on Ce:Bi molar ratio and the Ce_0.75Bi_0.25O_x NFs resulted in the highest electro-oxidation signal for AP among all Ce:Bi molar ratios tested in this study. Moreover, the Ce_0.75Bi_0.25O_x NFs modified SPE showed a sensitivity of 360 μA mM⁻¹cm⁻², a low detection limit of 0.2 μM (signal to noise ratio of 3), a wide linear range up to 130 μM for DPV-based AP detection, and good intra- and inter-electrode reproducibility. Both the selectivity against uric acid, glucose, dopamine, ascorbic acid and the accuracy of the developed sensor for real sample analysis were also investigated using commercial paracetamol tablets and AP-spiked human serum samples.