Abstract

In this article, we present a simple and efficient method to synthesize a magnetic NiFe2O4 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 NiFe2O4 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. © 2019 The Chemical Society Located in Taipei & Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim