Electrocatalytic determination of α 2-adrenergic agonist tizanidine at graphene–silicon dioxide nanocomposite sensor

•Highly sensitive graphene/silicon dioxide nano-composite electrochemical sensor has been developed.•Successfully applied for the determination of tizanidine in micellar system of CTAB.•Strong electro-catalytic activity for tizanidine reduction.•Use of cationic surfactant CTAB as solubilized system can be considered as green technology.

A novel graphene/silicon dioxide nano-composite modified glassy carbon electrode (GR/SiO2/GCE) sensor has been developed for the sensitive determination of an adrenergic agonist, muscle relaxant drug tizanidine (TZ) in solubilized system. The influence of experimental parameters on analytical performance of the developed sensor was investigated. GR/SiO2/GCE sensor exhibits excellent electrocatalytic performance toward reduction of tizanidine in Britton Robinson buffer at pH 6.5 in solubilized system of 0.1% cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB). Under optimized conditions, square wave cathodic peak current shows a linear response for tizanidine reduction over a concentration range of 5 (ng mL−1) to 10 (μg mL−1) with a correlation coefficient (r2) of 0.9928. The detection limit (LOD) and quantification limit (LOQ) were found to be 40.05 ng mL−1 and 133.50 ng mL−1, respectively. The fabricated sensor shows great promise for simple, sensitive, quantitative screening and detection of tizanidine using voltammetric techniques.

Graphical abstractFigure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slideA nano-composite sensor based on graphene/silicon dioxide modified glassy carbon (GR/SiO2/GCE) for sensitive determination of an adrenergic agonist drug tizanidine (TZ) in solubilized system of CTAB has been developed.