Synthesis and characterization of NiFe₂O₄ nanoparticles using the hydrothermal method as magnetic catalysts for electrochemical detection of norepinephrine in the presence of folic acid

Abstract

Abstract In this article, we present a simple and efficient method to synthesize a magnetic NiFe 2 O 4 nanocatalyst under hydrothermal conditions. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT‐IR), X‐ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and energy dispersive X‐ray spectroscopy (EDX) analyses confirmed the synthesis of NiFe 2 O 4 nanoparticles. These nanoparticles showed satisfactory catalytic activity for determination of norepinephrine (NE) in the presence of folic acid (FA) using cyclic voltammetry (CV) and differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) methods. Differential pulse voltammetry peak currents of NE increased linearly with their concentrations in the range of 1.0 × 10 −7 –5.0 × 10 −4 M, and the detection limit for NE was 2.3 × 10 −8 M, respectively. The modified electrode displayed strong function for resolving the overlapping voltammetric responses of NE and FA into two well‐defined voltammetric peaks. In the mixture containing NE and FA, the two compounds can well separate from each other with a potential difference of 510 mV between NE and FA, which was large enough to determine NE and FA individually and simultaneously. Additionally, the prepared electrochemical sensor demonstrated a practical feasibility for real sample determination.