Disposable screen printed graphite electrode for the direct electrochemical determination of ibuprofen in surface water

• The work describes the use of screen printed graphite electrode, for the first time, for the determination of ibuprofen.
• The developed method is fast, economical, simple and can be used for routine analysis of ibuprofen in water.
• The characterization of screen printed graphite electrodes are correlated with the voltammetric observations in clearly and logical way.
• Base-line correction is used for improving the voltammetric response of ibuprofen oxidation.

The potential of square wave voltammetry (SWV) for the determination of ibuprofen in aqueous solution, applying baseline correction, is reported. A screen printed graphite electrodes (SPGEs), especially pretreated for this purpose, were used to investigate the electrochemical oxidation and detection of ibuprofen. After optimization of SWV parameters, measurements were carried out at 200 Hz modulation frequency, 4 mV step potential and 40 mV pulse amplitude for the determination of ibuprofen. The surfaces of both untreated and pretreated SPGEs were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The electro-catalytic properties of both the electrodes were correlated with the surface treatment. The pretreated screen printed graphite electrode exhibited a high sensitivity toward ibuprofen even in low concentration. The developed method was found rapid, cost-effective and reproducible for in-field ibuprofen detection.