Electrochemical Sensing Platform for the Detection and Degradation Studies of Metanil Yellow

The discharge of dye loaded effluents from textile and food industries into natural water has skyrocketed in the last few years due to booming industrialization that stands to serve a mushrooming population. The adulterated water poses a serious threat to human and aquatic life. The present work aims to engage electrochemical methods by designing an electrochemical sensor using a modified glassy carbon electrode with amine functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes (NH₂-fMWCNTs) to detect nanomolar concentration of Metanil Yellow (MY) which is an azo dye used illegally in food industry. Various experimental conditions, such as the supporting electrolyte, pH of the electrolyte, deposition potential, and deposition time were optimized for the best performance of the designed sensing platform by square wave anodic stripping voltammetry (SWASV). Under optimized conditions, the limit of detection of MY was found to be 0.17 nM. The catalytic degradation of the dye was also probed by the designed nanosensor electrochemically and the results were supported by UV visible spectroscopic technique. The dye was found to follow pseudo first order kinetics with a degradation extent of 98.7%. The obtained results hold great promise in the context of water purification for safeguarding human and aquatic lives from the effects of toxic dye effluents.