Development of the low-cost cotton fabric based electroanalytical device for cadmium determination

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.