Glassy carbon electrodes modified with gold nanoparticles for the simultaneous determination of three food antioxidants

Electrochemical behavior of three antioxidants: butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA), butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) and butylated hydroquinone (TBHQ), was investigated at a glassy carbon electrode modified with gold nanoparticles (AuNPs/GCE). This electrode was characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The experimental results indicated that the modified electrode was strongly electroactive during the redox reactions of BHA, BHT and TBHQ, and this was confirmed by the observed increased redox peak currents and shifted potentials; in addition, the oxidation products of BHA and TBHQ were found to be the same. The experimental conditions were optimized and the oxidation peaks of BHA and BHT were clearly separated. Based on this, an electrochemical method was researched and developed for the simultaneous determination of BHA, BHT and TBHQ in mixtures with the use of first derivative voltammetry; the linear concentration ranges were 0.10–1.50 μg mL−1, 0.20–2.20 μg mL−1 and 0.20–2.80 μg mL−1, and detection limits were 0.039, 0.080 and 0.079 μg mL−1, for BHA, BHT and TBHQ, respectively. The proposed method was successfully applied for the analysis of the three analytes in edible oil samples.

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► A gold nanoparticles modified glassy carbon electrode (AuNPs/GCE) was constructed.
► The electrochemical mechanism of BHA, BHT and TBHQ at the AuNPs/GCE was studied.
► The oxidation products of BHA and TBHQ were found to be the same.
► First-derivative method was used to resolve the overlapped voltammograms.
► Synthetic antioxidants in food samples were analyzed.