Afsaneh Safavi - Department of Chemistry, College of Sciences, Shiraz University
Maryam Tohidi

Herein, palladium paste nanocomposite electrode was employed as an efficient electrocatalyst for ethanol oxidation and nonenzymatic amperometric ethanol sensor, in alkaline media. The combined application of unique properties of palladium nanomaterials and ionic liquid results in electrode with interesting advantages compared to the conventional palladium disk electrodes. A high stability and very significant tolerance of this electrode to accumulation of carbonaceous species (CO-like intermediates) make it a good candidate for electrocatalytic applications such as fuel cell applications. Ease of electrode fabrication, cleaning and activating the electrode surface, together with high electrocatalytic activity, increased degree of active area and surface roughness, antipoisoning effect, good signal to noise ratio and low weight are among the advantageous features of this electrode for ethanol detection. In addition, this nanocomposite electrode shows long-term stability, high sensitivity, a low detection limit (20.0 µM), wide linear range (30.0 µM–1.6 M) and reproducibility for ethanol determination. The results show that the obtained linear range for this work is very large compared to previously reported works that has great importance. The investigation of the performance of this nanocomposite electrode in real sample clearly indicates the reliability of the proposed nanocomposite electrodes for ethanol determination. The excellent analytical performance confirms the applicability of this fabricated nanocomposite electrode in fuel cells and as a nonenzymatic amperometric ethanol sensor.

component; ethanol, palladium paste nanocomposite electrode, fuel cell, nonenzymatic amperometric ethanol sensor