Fabrication of a new electrochemiluminescent sensor for fentanyl citrate based on glassy carbon microspheres and ionic liquid composite paste electrode

Due to the high performance of glassy carbon in the aspects of mechanical strength, electrical conductivity and high corrosion resistance, etc., glassy carbon has been widely used in the electrochemistry. A new form of glassy carbon, glassy carbon microsphere, was utilized to couple with ionic liquid in preparing a new electrochemiluminescent platform for Ru(bpy)3Cl2. Room temperature ionic liquid has been proposed to be very interesting and efficient pasting binder to replace the non conductive organic binders for the fabrication of composite paste electrode. Attributed to the special characteristics of glassy carbon microspheres and room temperature ionic liquid [N-octylpyridium tetrafluoroborate (OPFP)], this new electrochemiluminescent sensor exhibited excellent electrochemiluminescent performance in Ru(bpy)32+ solution. We first found that fentanyl citrate could increase the ECL of Ru(bpy)32+, hence an ECL approach was developed for the determination of fentanyl citrate based on this glassy carbon microspheres based electrochemiluminescent platform with high sensitivity. Under the optimized conditions, the enhanced electrochemiluminescent intensity versus fentanyl citrate concentration was linear in the range of 1.0 × 10−8 to 1.0 × 10−4 mol L−1 with a detection limit of 8.5 × 10−9 mol L−1, and the relative standard deviation for 1.0 × 10−6 mol L−1 fentanyl citrate was 1.90% (n = 10). This protocol has extended the application scopes of glassy carbon material and promoted the application of glassy carbon microspheres in electroanalysis.