Effect of substrate and embedded metallic impurities of fullerene in the determination of nandrolone

A comparison of edge plane pyrolytic graphite substrate is made with other substrates like indium tin oxide, glassy carbon, gold and basal plane pyrolytic graphite as a substrate for fullerene modification for the determination of nandrolone by Osteryoung square wave voltammetry (OSWV) in phosphate buffer media. Comparative study of voltammetric response of nandrolone at untreated, purified and super-purified fullerene modified edge plane pyrolytic graphite electrode (EPPGE) is also carried out to determine the role of embedded metallic impurities of fullerene on determination of nandrolone. It is observed that EPPGE serves as best substrate among the studied for casting fullerene. The removal of embedded metals from fullerene shifts the peak potential of nandrolone to more positive potentials and peak current decreases. A linear calibration curve is obtained in the concentration range of 0.01–50 nM with a detection limit and sensitivity of 1.5 × 10−11 M and 1.838 μA nM−1, respectively. The developed method was satisfactorily applied to the determination of nandrolone in several commercially available medicinal samples.