Abstract:
High levels of cadmium in water can affect the health of humans and animals adversely due to its toxicity and carcinogenicity. Onsite low-cost detection tools are extremely useful than common methods such as spectroscopic methods and potentiometric methods to determine water quality. This study was conducted to develop a low-cost, onsite, and eco-friendly microfluidic cotton fabric based electroanalytical device for the detection of Cd2+ion in water. Cotton fabric is used as the platform for the device and the microfluidic device is fabricated using a graphite paste working electrode modified with coconut shell powder, stainless steel as the counter electrode, and a silver pseudo-reference electrode. The determination of Cd2+ was carried out using differential pulse anodic stripping voltammetry. The optimized conditions are 0.1 mol dm-3 HCl as the supporting electrolyte, 2 min deposition time, 100 mV pulse height, and 50 mV pulse increment. Due to the abundance of Cu2+ in water, interference of Cu2+ was investigated. The developed microfluidic device is capable of producing a linear correlation between peak current and the concentration of Cd2+ in the range of 20 - 200 ppm.The developed microfluidic device with a graphite paste working electrode modified using coconut shell powder can be used effectively for Cd2+ determination with the limit of detection of 0.11 mM.