Ag/Au Modified Nafion Coated Glassy Carbon Electrode for the Detection of Metronidazole

In pharmaceutical analysis, especially in Jordan, almost all of the attention is paid to the chromatographic and photometric methods of analysis. The utilization of electrochemistry as a tool for determination of the active pharmaceutical ingredients is not common. In this work, metronidazole (MNZ) was detected electrochemically in its aqueous buffered solution utilizing differential pulse voltammetry, which is one of the key electrochemical tools used for chemical analysis. For the detection purposes, nafion coated glassy carbon electrode was modified with gold, then silver by means of electrochemical deposition. The modified electrode has demonstrated significant performance toward the detection of metronidazole. Statistical evaluation of the reported performance shows that the detection is valid in the 1.00x10(-4)-1.00x10(-3) M range with limit of detection equals to 5.87x10(-8) M and limit of quantitation equals to 1.96x10(-7) M. The detection of metronidazole in solid pharmaceuticals provided locally was also investigated and recovery values in the 91-97% range were obtained. The modified electrode was also employed for the monitoring of metronidazole electrolytic degradation, usually detected by means of total organic carbon analysis or photometric instrumental methods. The utilized electrochemical monitoring have demonstrated efficiency that is comparable to the standard photometric method when the degradation was performed with platinum anode and boron-doped diamond cathode.