An Electrochemical Platform Constructed with Tantalum Nanoparticles and Graphene Nanoplatelets for the Voltammetric Sensing of Ritodrine

Tantalum (Ta) nanoparticles were synthesized by the reaction of lithium with pyridine solution of TaCl 5 via ultrasonication. Then, Ta nanoparticles and graphene nanoplatelets (GNP) were utilized to construct a novel sensing platform for the voltammetric detection of ritodrine. The electrochemically active surface area and charge transfer resistance ( R ct ) of the proposed electrochemical platform (GCE/GNP@Ta) were determined to be 0.336 cm 2 and 86 Ω. This indicates that proposed material can be considered as a promising material in sensing applications. The performance of GCE/GNP@Ta was examined for ritodrine oxidation process and compared with other electrodes. GCE/GNP@Ta improved the voltammetric behavior of ritodrine and exhibited an oxidation peak potential ( E p ) of 0.71 V, which is less than that of other electrodes. The potential shift and peak improvement of ritodrine indicated the higher electrocatalytic activity of electrode modified with GNP@Ta. GCE/GNP@Ta exhibited a working range from 4.0 × 10 −8 to 1.5 × 10 −6 M with a detection limit of 1.0 × 10 −9 M (3 s b /m) for ritodrine. The voltammetric measurements yielded excellent accuracy and high precision for ritodrine in biological samples.