Sensitive electrochemical sensing of acetaminophen and hydroquinone over single-pot synthesized stabilizer free Ag/Ag-oxide-graphene nanocomposites

•A single-step synthesis of stabilizer free Ag/graphene nanohybrid is demonstrated.•The nanohybrid was tested for electrosensing of acetaminophen and hydroquinone.•The nanohybrids show low detection limit and high sensitivity for tested analytes.

A single-step, one-pot synthetic approach for decorating graphene with nanodimensional silver under mild, stabilizer free and eco-green reducing conditions is presented. The synthesized nanocomposites were adequately characterized for their chemical state through UV-vis spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and electrochemical technique. The synthesized nanocomposite depicts excellent electrochemical stability and promising electrocatalytic and electroanalytic activity as demonstrated by the estimated sensitivity parameter i−p, of 18.48 and 12.35 (As1/2 V− 1/2 M− 1 cm− 2) for acetaminophen and hydroquinone respectively. Very low detection limits of 0.022 μM and 0.004 μM with very high sensitivities of 20,153 μAM− 1 cm− 2 and 13,942.31 μAM− 1 cm− 2 for acetaminophen and H2Q respectively were estimated.

Graphical abstractDownload high-res image (195KB)Download full-size image