Ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled with graphene/polyaniline nanocomposite modified electrode for the determination of sulfonamide residues

An ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) coupled with graphene/polyaniline (G/PANI)-modified screen-printed carbon electrode was developed for separation and sensitive determination of eight sulfonamides (SAs) in shrimp. Electrospraying was selected for electrode modification because it can generate the well dispersion of G/PANI nanocomposites on the electrode surface. Prior to electrochemical detection, eight SAs were completely separated within 7 min by using reversed phase UPLC (C4) with mobile phase containing 70:25:5 (v/v/v) of potassium hydrogen phosphate (pH 3):acetonitrile:ethanol. For amperometric detection, the detection potential acquired from hydrodynamic voltammetry was found to be +1.4 V. Under optimal conditions, a wide linearity and low limit of detection were obtained for eight SAs in the range of 0.01–10 µg mL−1 and 1.162–6.127 ng mL−1, respectively. Compared to boron-doped diamond (BDD) electrode, a G/PANI-modified screen-printed carbon electrode offered higher sensitivity with lower operating cost. To determine SAs in shrimp samples, solid-phase extraction was used to clean up and preconcentrate the samples prior to UPLC separation. To validate this developed method, a highly quantitative agreement was accomplished with UPLC–UV system. Thus, this proposed system might be an alternative approach for rapid, inexpensive, and sensitive determination of SAs in shrimps.