Synthesis of amine-functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotube/3D rose flower-like zinc oxide nanocomposite for sensitive electrochemical detection of flavonoid morin.

A novel composite consisting of three dimensional (3D) hierarchical rose flower-like zinc oxide decorated with amine-functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes (NH2-MWCNT/ZnO) was synthesized and applied to the effective electrochemical detection of morin, a flavonoid with health-promoting and therapeutic activities. We have used a hydrothermal technique to synthesize the 3D rose flower-like ZnO, which was then composited with NH2-MWCNT through a sonochemical method. The morphology and structure of the prepared materials were characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), elemental mapping, X-ray diffraction (XRD), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area analysis, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and Raman spectroscopy. Cyclic voltammetry (CV) and differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) techniques were employed for the evaluation of electrochemical properties of the NH2-MWCNT/ZnO nanocomposite. Under optimal conditions, the NH2-MWCNT/ZnO modified screen printed carbon electrode (SPCE) exhibits a broad linear response from 0.2 to 803.4 μM, excellent selectivity of 2.71 μAμM-1cm-2, and a very low limit of detection (LOD) of 0.002 μM. The practicability of the fabricated sensor has been confirmed by selectivity and real sample analyses. Furthermore, the developed sensor also shows good operational and storage stability.