Polymeric Co(salen) scaffold for the electrochemical determination of acetaminophen in pharmaceutical sample

A polymeric Co(salen) (where salen = N,N'-bis(salicylidene)ethylenediamine) electrochemical sensing scaffold was prepared by electropolymerization of Co(salen) on glassy carbon (GC) electrode employing potentiodynamic method. The sensing scaffold, represented as GC/poly[Co-II-S], has notable activity toward the electrochemical oxidation of acetaminophen in 0.1 M pH 7.0 phosphate buffer solution. Polymeric films with porous or net-like structures are normally expected to function as excellent platforms for electrochemical reactions. Accordingly in the present study, GC/poly[Co-II-S] scaffold displays a perfect linear relationship for acetaminophen determination in the range of 0.5 to 5000 mu M. The sensitivity and detection limit are calculated as 71 mu A mM(-1) and 0.3 mu M, respectively. This new sensing scaffold displays high stability for more than 40 days. The reproducibility is measured based on the response of different scaffolds for 12 experiments which shows a relative standard deviation of 3.9 %. Further, GC/poly[Co-II-S] is successfully applied for acetaminophen determination in a real sample.