Intertwined carbon nanotubes and ag nanowires constructed by simple solution blending as sensitive and stable chloramphenicol sensors

Abstract

Chloramphenicol (CAP) is a harmful compound associated with human hematopathy and neuritis, which was widely used as a broad-spectrum antibacterial agent in agriculture and aqua-culture. Therefore, it is significant to detect CAP in aquatic environments. In this work, carbon nano-tubes/silver nanowires (CNTs/AgNWs) composite electrodes were fabricated as the CAP sensor. Distinguished from in situ growing or chemical bonding noble metal nanomaterials on carbon, this CNTs/AgNWs composite was formed by simple solution blending. It was demonstrated that CNTs and AgNWs both contributed to the redox reaction of CAP in dynamics, and AgNWs was beneficial in thermodynamics as well. The proposed electrochemical sensor displayed a low detection limit of up to 0.08 μM and broad linear range of 0.1–100 μM for CAP. In addition, the CNTs/AgNWs electrodes exhibited good performance characteristics of repeatability and reproducibility, and proved suitable for CAP analysis in real water samples.