Selective determination of L-dopa in the presence of uric acid and ascorbic acid at a gold nanoparticle self-assembled carbon nanotube-modified pyrolytic graphite electrode

Article abstract of DOI:10.1016/j.electacta.2010.03.069

Gold nanoparticle-functionalized carbon nanotubes (AuNP-CNT) have been prepared by a novel self-assembly method. The new material has been characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) and utilized for constructing Au

Full text of DOI:10.1016/j.electacta.2010.03.069

Electrochimica Acta 55 (2010) 4711–4716
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Electrochimica Acta
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/electacta
Selective determination of L-dopa in the presence of uric acid and
ascorbic acid at a gold nanoparticle self-assembled carbon
nanotube-modified pyrolytic graphite electrode
Guangzhi Hua,c, Long Chenb, Yong Guoa, Xiaolai Wangb,∗, Shijun Shaoa,∗
a Key Laboratory for Natural Medicine of Gansu Province, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, PR China
b State Key Laboratory for Oxo Synthesis and Selective Oxidation, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, PR China
c Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100039, PR China
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history:
Gold nanoparticle-functionalized carbon nanotubes (AuNP-CNT) have been prepared by a novel self-
assembly method. The new material has been characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM)
and X-ray diffraction (XRD) and utilized for constructing AuNP-CNT-modified pyrolytic graphite elec-
trode (AuNP-CNT/PGE) to investigate the electrochemical behavior of L-dopa in neutral phosphate buffer
solution. Compared to bare PG electrode, AuNP-CNT/PGE shows novel properties towards the electro-
chemical redox of L-dopa in phosphate buffer solution at pH 7.0. The oxidation potential of L-dopa shows
a significant decrease at the AuNP-CNT/PGE. The oxidation current of L-dopa is about 5-fold higher than
that of the unmodified PGE. Using differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) method, the oxidation current is
well linear with L-dopa concentration in the range of 0.1–150 ␮M, with a detection limit of about 50 nM
(S/N = 3). The proposed electrode can also effectively avoid the interference of ascorbic acid and uric acid,
making the proposed sensor suitable for the accurate determination of L-dopa in both pharmaceutical
preparations and human body fluids.
Received 4 March 2010
Accepted 24 March 2010
Available online 31 March 2010
Keywords:
Gold nanoparticles
Carbon nanotubes
Self-assembly
L-dopa
Pyrolytic graphite electrode
© 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
As catecholamine compounds can be oxidized with electro-
chemical technology [9], herein, L-dopa can also be detected with
Parkinson’s disease is a chronic, progressive neurodegenerative
movement disorder that occurs when the substantia nigra of the
mid-brain dies and fails to produce enough dopamine [1]. This
condition causes tremors, rigidity, poor balance, and dyskinesia.
Because it cannot penetrate the blood–brain barrier, dopamine can-
not be effectively used for the treatment of this serious disease
[2]. L-dopa (levodopa, 3,4-dihydroxy-l-phenylalanine) is widely
used as a source of dopamine in the treatment of most patients
with Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy [3]. This drug can be princi-
pally metabolized by an enzymatic reaction (dopa-descarboxilase)
to dopamine compensating for the deficiency of dopamine in the
brain. With its serious side effects with long-term use on human
health, e.g. gastritis, paranoia, and dyskinesia [4,5], L-dopa should
be given an accurate analysis in both pharmaceutical formulations
and biological fluids. At present, several technologies have been
reported for L-dopa analysis, such as titration [6], spectrophotom-
etry [7], and high-performance liquid chromatography [8]. These
determination methods often require some complicated and time-
consuming pretreatments and/or experimental equipments.
electrochemical method. Unfortunately, most unmodified solid
electrodes show a slow electron transfer for the electrochemical
oxidation of L-dopa with a high overpotential. The oxidation prod-
uct of L-dopa easily adsorbs at the bare electrode surface, leading to
the poor reproducibility and repeatability of these unmodified elec-
trodes. Furthermore, some small biomolecules, e.g. uric acid (UA)
and ascorbic acid (AA), have similar oxidation potential as that of L-
dopa and show serious interference for the determination of L-dopa
[10]. To overcome these problems, many chemically modified elec-
trodes have been reported for the L-dopa determination. Teixeira
et al. fabricated a carbon paste electrode modified with trinuclear
ruthenium ammine complex (Ru-red) supported on Y-type zeo-
lite for the voltammetric determination in a acetate buffer at pH
4.8, with a detection limit of about 85 ␮M [11]. Bergamini et al.
applied a gold screen-printing electrode to the monitor of L-dopa
in stationary solution and a flow system at pH 3.0 [12]. Sivane-
san and John fabricated a glassy carbon electrode modified with
tetraaminophthalocyanatonickel (II) film for the selective determi-
nation of L-dopa in the presence of ascorbic acid [13].
Nanoscale materials have attracted considerable attention of
the analysts in the last decade due to their special physical
and chemical properties [14–18]. Goyal group developed a num-
ber of nanomaterial-modified electrode and applied them to the
∗
Corresponding author. Fax: +86 931 8277088.
E-mail addresses: xlwang@lzb.ac.cn (X. Wang), shaoguo@licp.cas.cn (S. Shao).
0013-4686/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.electacta.2010.03.069

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G. Hu et al. / Electrochimica Acta 55 (2010) 4711–4716
electrochemical determination of biomolecules and drugs, e.g. dex-
amethasone [19], triamcinolone [20], 2ꢀ,3ꢀ-dideoxyadenosine [21],
adenosine and guanosine [22], paracetamol [23], uric acid [24],
dopamine [25] and inosine [26]. Yan et al. proved that single-wall
carbon nanotubes can effectively decrease the oxidation poten-
tial of L-dopa and can be utilized to prepare a single-wall carbon
nanotube-modified glassy carbon electrode for the determination
of L-dopa, with a detection limit of about 0.3 ␮M [27]. Xiang et
al. reported a multi-wall carbon nanotubes-Nafion modified glassy
carbon electrode for the adsorption stripping voltammetry of L-
dopa, with a detection limit of about 50 nM [28]. Mathiyarasu and
Nyholm constructed a poly-(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)-single-
walled carbon nanotube composite-modified microelectrode and
applied it to the electrochemical determination of L-dopa, with a
detection limit of 0.1 ␮M [29]. Shahrokhian and Asadian reported
a glassy carbon electrode modified by a bilayer of multi-walled
carbon nanotube and poly-pyrrole doped with tiron for the elec-
trochemical determination of L-dopa in the presence of AA, with a
detection limit of 0.1 ␮M [30].
method. The new material was applied to investigate the electro-
chemical behavior of L-dopa in neutral phosphate buffer solution
(PBS). Experimental data show that the proposed electrode can
effectively decrease the oxidation potential of L-dopa. Using the
differential pulse voltammetry for the accurate determination of L-
dopa, the oxidation current is proportional with its concentration
in the range of 0.1–150 ␮M, with a detection limit about 50 nM.
Meanwhile, the proposed sensor can also effectively avoid the
interference of AA and UA and has been successfully applied to
the determination of L-dopa formulations with high sensitivity and
good selectivity.
2. Experimental
2.1. Chemicals
Chloroauric acid and L-dopa hydrochloride were purchased
from the Sinopharm Chemical Reagent Co. (Shanghai, China). Ben-
zyl Mercaptan (BM), uric acid and ascorbic acid were purchased
from Alfa-Aesar (Tianjin, China). L-dopa capsules were purchased
from the Shanghai Roche Pharmaceuticals (Shanghai, China). All
other chemicals are of analytical grade and used as received.
It is a fact that gold nanoparticles show good electrocat-
alytic activity towards the electrochemical oxidation of dopamine
[31–33]. In this paper, we have synthesized gold nanoparticle-
functionalized multi-wall carbon nanotubes by a self-assembly
Fig. 1. Preparation scheme of AuNP-CNTs.

G. Hu et al. / Electrochimica Acta 55 (2010) 4711–4716
4713
2.2. Synthesis of AuNP-CNTs
an ultrasonic bath, respectively. 10 mg of AuNP-CNTs were added
to 10 mL of N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF) under ultrasonic agita-
tion to give a black suspension. The AuNP-CNT/PGE was prepared
by casting 10 ␮L of AuNP-CNT suspension on the pretreated PGE
surface and dried under an infrared lamp.
High-quality multi-wall carbon nanotubes were synthesized by
chemical vapor deposition method using Co/La2O3 as catalyst and
ethylene as carbon source in a tubular quartz reactor. The detailed
experimental procedure is given in our previous report [34]. Gold
nanoparticles were synthesized according to the former literature
[35]. The synthesis procedure of gold nanoparticles self-assembled
CNTs, illustrated as in Fig. 1, was similar to our previous report
[36]. Briefly, the obtained Au colloidal solution was added into
a toluene solution containing Benzyl Mercaptan (BM) and given
a stirring for 1 h, and then equal volume of distilled water was
added to the solution. A liquid in two phases was obtained. The
upper dark brown solution was BM-modified Au/toluene solution
and was washed with distilled water to remove the ethanol com-
pletely. About 33 mg of multi-walled CNTs was added to a certain
volume of toluene and given an ultrasonication for about 2 h to form
a CNTs/toluene suspension. The as-prepared suspension was mixed
with the above-mentioned BM-modified Au/toluene solution and
ultrasonicated for 12 h until all Au nanoparticles were anchored on
CNTs. The AuNP-CNT was separated from the mixture via suction
filtration and then washed by ethanol completely.
2.4. Measurements
The morphology of the Au-CNT nanocomposite was determined
with a JEOL 2010 TEM (JEOL, Japan) equipped with a LaB6 fila-
ment at 200 kV and an energy dispersive X-ray analyzer (EDAX,
USA). XRD data was obtained by an X’Pert PRO Multi-purpose
Diffractometer (PANalytical, Netherlands) using Cu K␣ radiation
(k = 0.15418 nm).
Voltammetric measurements were carried out on a CHI660C
electrochemical workstation (CHI Instrument, Shanghai). All mea-
surements were performed in a conventional three-electrode cell,
consisting of an unmodified PGE (Tianjin Aidahengsheng Technol-
ogy Co., China) or the AuNP-CNT-modified PGE working electrode,
a saturated calomel electrode (SCE) reference and a platinum wire
counter electrode. 0.1 M phosphate buffer solution at pH 6.9 was
prepared from KH2PO4 and K2HPO4 and its pH was adjusted value
with 1 M H2SO4 or NaOH solution. Prior to each electrochemical
measurement, the electrolyte solution was deoxygenated by bub-
bling with high-pure nitrogen for 30 min.
2.3. Preparation of AuNP-CNTs/PGE
Bare PGE (2 mm in diameter, Tianjin Aidahensheng Co., China)
was carefully polished with 1.0, 0.3, and 0.05 ␮m alumina powders
in series, and then treated with 50% nitric acid, ethanol and water in
Fig. 3. (A) Cyclic voltagramms of AuNP-CNT/PGE (curve a and c) and CNT/PGE (curve
b) in the absence (curve a) and presence (curve b and c) of 20 ␮M L-dopa in 0.1 M
PBS at pH 7.0, inset is CV curves of bare PGE in 0.1 M PBS at pH 7.0 without (curve
d) and with (curve e) 20 ␮M L-dopa; (B) cyclic voltagramms of AuNP-CNT/PGE in
0.1 M PBS (pH 7.0) containing 20 ␮M L-dopa at different scanning rate: a → j, 20, 40,
60, 80, 100, 120, 140, 160, 180, and 200 mV/s.
Fig. 2. TEM image (A) and XRD pattern (B) of Au-CNTs. (A, inset): SAED image of
Au-CNTs.

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G. Hu et al. / Electrochimica Acta 55 (2010) 4711–4716
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Characterization of AuNP-CNTs
Fig. 2A presents a typical TEM image of the as-prepared
AuNP-CNTs. The spherical gold nanoparticles are homogenously
dispersed on CNTs without significant aggregation and the diam-
eter of them is from 5 to 10 nm. No dissociated Au nanoparticle
is observed on the background of TEM image, indicating that
these Au nanoparticles are strongly adhered on the CNT surface.
The selected area electron diffraction (SAED) pattern in Fig. 1
(inset) shows that these Au nanoparticles on CNT surface are poly-
crystalline structure. XRD pattern of AuNP-CNTs shows (0 0 2),
(1 0 1) and (0 0 4) reflections of graphite, as well as (0 0 2), (2 0 0),
(2 2 0) and (3 1 1) reflections of gold, indicating that metallic Au
phase exists in the as-prepared nanoscale hybrid. According to the
Scherrer equation [37], the average diameter of the gold nanopar-
ticles was calculated about 9.5 nm, consistent with previous TEM
results.
3.2. Electrochemical behavior of L-dopa
The electrochemical behavior of L-dopa was investigated with
cyclic voltammetry (CV) in 0.1 M phosphate buffer solution at pH
6.9. As shown in Fig. 3A (inset), a weak response and low elec-
tron transaction for L-dopa is observed on a bare PGE. A broad
oxidation peak of L-dopa is at 0.486 V, with a broad potential
region from 0.2 to 0.6 V. The CNT-modified PGE show a good
electrocatalytic oxidation towards L-dopa (as seen in Fig. 3A),
indicating that the CNT-modified PGE can effectively decrease
the oxidation potential of L-dopa to 0.196 V. However, a pair of
well-defined redox peaks is observed at the AuNP-CNT/PGE. The
anodic and cathodic peak potentials are at 0.212 and 0.173 V,
respectively, with a peak-to-peak separation of about 0.039 V.
Furthermore, the oxidation peak current (Ipa) of L-dopa at the
AuNP-CNT/PGE is 28.3- and 1.67-fold higher than that of the
bare and CNT-modified PG electrodes, with a better reversibility.
These results confirm that the Au nanoparticles on CNT surface
can effectively accelerate the electrochemical redox of L-dopa and
significantly increase the oxidation current at the modified elec-
trode.
Fig. 4. (A) CV curves of CNT/PGE in 0.1 M PBS containing 20 ␮M L-dopa at different
pH: a → e, 3.3, 5.9, 7.0, 7.8, and 9.8; (B) dependence of anodic peak potential (black
triangle) and anodic peak current (green globular) as a function of solution pH in
0.1 M PBS containing 20 ␮M L-dopa. (For interpretation of the references to color in
this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of the article.)
reaction, |Ep − Ep/2| = 59/n mV, the electron transfer number was
calculated to be 1.843 (approximately 2). So the electrochemical
redox of L-dopa at the proposed electrode is a two-electron coupled
two-proton transfer mechanism. Therefore, the electrochemical
redox process of L-dopa can be described as follows:
The relationship between redox peaks current is also
investigated with CV method. The anodic and cathodic
currents are linear with the square root of the scan
rate from 20 to 200 mV s−1
.
The linear progress equa-
tion are Ipa(10−6 A) = (2.905 1.112) + (0.307 0.009)ꢀ and
Ipc(10−6 A) = (10.370 1.206) − (0.285 0.009)ꢀ (mV s−1), a corre-
lation coefficient of 0.997 and 0.996, respectively, indicating that
the electrode progress is controlled by adsorption [38]. The most
probable reason is that the electronegative oxygen-containing
groups and gold nanoparticles on CNTs surface can easily adsorb
electropositive L-dopa molecule in neutral PBS blank.
3.4. Effect of accumulation time
As the electrode progress is controlled by the adsorption of L-
dopa, it is very import to investigate the effects of accumulation
time. As shown in Fig. 5, the oxidation peak current of L-dopa
gradually increased with increasing accumulation time from 0 to
180 s, and reached the maximum current response at 180 s. Further
increasing the accumulation time, there is no significant increase in
the current response. This phenomenon is probably due to the sat-
urated adsorption of L-dopa on the AuNP-CNT/PGE surface, and no
change is observed when increasing the accumulation time. Herein,
180 s is chosen as the optimum accumulation time. The accumula-
tion potential was also investigated in the range of −0.4 to 0.1 V.
The results prove that varying accumulation potential does not
show sufficient influence on the increase of L-dopa oxidation cur-
rent. Therefore, a stirred accumulation for 180 s under open-circuit
was used for the preconcentration of L-dopa in each voltammetric
measurement.
3.3. Effects of solution pH
Cyclic voltammetry was carried out to characterize the effects
of solution pH on redox peak potentials of L-dopa at the AuNP-
CNTs/PGE in Fig. 4. As shown in Fig. 4A, the redox peak potential
of L-dopa shifts negatively with the increase of solution pH, indi-
cating that protons take part in the electrode reaction process.
The anodic peak potential of L-dopa is proportional with the solu-
tion pH in the range of 3–10. The linear regression equation was
Epa(V) = (0.606 0.014) − (0.057 0.001)pH, with the correlation
coefficient 0.999, demonstrating that the electrode process is equal
proton-electron transfer. The slope of the equation is in close agree-
ment with the former report [27]. For a reversible electrochemical

G. Hu et al. / Electrochimica Acta 55 (2010) 4711–4716
4715
Fig. 7. CV curves of the Au-CNT/PGE (black line) by successively adding 1.0 mM AA
(red line), 20 ␮M L-dopa (green line) and 20 ␮M UA (blue line) in 0.1 M PBS at pH
7.0. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is
referred to the web version of the article.)
Fig. 5. Effect of accumulation time on peak current of 10 ␮M L-dopa at AuNP-
CNT/PGE in 0.1 M PBS at pH 7.0.
3.5. DPV determination of L-dopa
Table 1
Determination of L-dopa in capsules (n = 5).
Differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) method is normally used
for the determination of catecholamine compounds because of
its high sensitivity [39,40]. Herein, the determination of L-dopa
was also performed with the DPV method using the proposed
AuNP-CNT/PGE. Fig. 6 shows the DPV curves at different concen-
trations of L-dopa at the modified electrode. Clearly, the anodic
peak current increases linearly with L-dopa concentration rang-
Sample No.
Labeled (mg)
Detected (mg)
RSD
Recovery
Bias (%)
1
2
3
200
200
200
196
206
203
3
5
4
1.53%
1.84%
1.74%
98%
103%
102%
−2.0
+3.0
+1.5
important to investigate these interferences in order to conduct
the accurate determination of L-dopa. Fig. 7 shows three individ-
ual anodic peaks appearing at the potential of −0.037, 0.208 and
0.336 V, which correspond to the oxidations of, AA, L-dopa and UA,
respectively. The results illustrate that the coexistence of UA and
AA has no influence on L-dopa determination. Equivalent amount of
dopamine and epinephrine will seriously affect the accurate deter-
mination of L-dopa. As their concentration in human blood and
urine is extremely low, so dopamine and epinephrine do not affect
the determination of L-dopa in human fluids. The influence of other
substances on L-dopa peak currents was also investigated, and no
ing from 0.1 to 150 ␮M, the linear regress progression is Ip
L-dopa
(␮A) = (0.388 0.596) + (1.073 0.011) (␮M), with a correlation
coefficient of 0.998. The detection limit is 50 nM (S/N = 3), which is
better than that of the latest reports [30,41,42]. The relative stan-
dard deviation of 10 determinations for 10 ␮M is 0.93%, showing
the good reproducibility of the proposed electrode. The anodic cur-
rent of L-dopa has no significant change at the proposed electrode
after its preparation for 2 months, indicating the excellent stability
of Au-CNT/PGE.
interference was found for 10 ␮M L-dopa in the presence of the
3.6. Interference study
−
following substances: 100-fold glucose, urea and 1000-fold NO3
,
Cl−, PO43−, SO42−, NH4+, K+, Na+, Mg2+, Ca2+, with a deviation below
It is well known that UA and AA are electroactive molecules
that coexist in a biological system [43], and that they can also
be oxidized in most conventional solid electrodes. Therefore, it is
5%.
3.7. Sample analysis
In order to evaluate the validity of the proposed method, con-
tents of 30 hard capsules were emptied, weighed and carefully
mixed. A portion of the powder equivalent to 500 mg L-dopa
was accurately weighed, dissolved into 10 mL of 0.1 M H2SO4 and
separated with a centrifugal machine. Further dilution was also per-
formed with 0.1 M H2SO4 to reach the calibration range of L-dopa.
A standard addition was used for L-dopa concentration determina-
tion in 0.1 M PBS at pH 7.0. The recoveries were 98–103%, with
a relative standard deviation (RSD) lower than 2% (in Table 1),
confirming that the proposed sensor is reliable for L-dopa deter-
mination in pharmaceutical preparations.
4. Conclusions
High-quality gold nanoparticle-functionalized carbon nanotube
material has been successfully synthesized via self-assembly tech-
nology. The new material can be considered as a high sensitive and
selective sensor in voltammetric determination of L-dopa. The pro-
posed sensor shows a novel electrocatalytic activity towards the
Fig. 6. DPV curves of Au-CNT/PGE in 0.1 M PBS (pH 7.0) containing different con-
centration L-dopa: a → j, 0, 1, 4.5, 7.5, 15, 35, 50, 70, 90, and 100 ␮M. Inset is the
linear relationship between Ipa and L-dopa concentration.

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G. Hu et al. / Electrochimica Acta 55 (2010) 4711–4716
anodic oxidation of L-dopa with a significant enlargement in peak
current and a great decrease in peak potential. The reproducibility,
good selectivity and stability, low detection limit of the proposed
electrode make it appropriate for use in the electrochemical deter-
mination of L-dopa in pharmaceutical and clinical preparations.
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