New sensitive square-wave adsorptive stripping voltammetric determination of pesticide chlornitrofen, and an evaluation of its corrosivity towards steel agricultural equipment

• An environmentally friendly electrode was used for the reduction of chlornitrofen.
• A new and sensitive voltammetric method was developed.
• The procedure was applied to detect chlornitrofen in the river water sample.
• The adsorption effect of chlornitrofen on the mercury electrode was studied.
• The corrosivity of pesticide chlornitrofen towards stainless steel was tested.

The electrochemical reduction of a fungicide, chlornitrofen (Cnf), was carried out on a renewable silver amalgam film electrode (Hg(Ag)FE). A new and sensitive square-wave adsorptive stripping voltammetric (SWAdSV) method of its determination was developed. The cathodic signal of Cnf at about − 0.6 V vs. Ag/AgCl/KCl was investigated in Britton–Robinson (B–R) buffer, pH 8.8. Under optimized conditions, a linear calibration curve in the concentration range from 1.0 × 10− 7 mol L− 1 to 1.5 × 10− 6 mol L− 1 was obtained. The proposed SWAdSV method exhibited acceptable analytical performance in terms of the detection limit (LOD = 3.0 × 10− 8 mol L− 1). The satisfactory repeatability of the voltammetric response for the different concentrations of Cnf was obtained (RSD = 1.1% ÷ 6.6%). Additionally, the practical applicability of the method was verified by the quantitative analysis of micromolar concentrations of Cnf in Warta River water samples. The corrosivity of pesticide Cnf towards stainless steel was tested using electrochemical techniques.

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