Preparation, characterization and simultaneous electrochemical detection toward Cd (II) and Hg(II) of a phosphate/zinc oxide modified carbon paste electrode

The nanoparticle ZnO-NP was manufactured by doping natural phosphate (NP) with zinc. The resulting sample was characterized by different techniques such as DRX, FT-IR, SEM. The ZnO-NP/CPE electrode has been applied for the simultaneous determination of Cd (II) and Hg (II). The electrochemical measurement of the elaborate sensor toward the hazardous metals ions was investigated by cyclic voltammetry (CV), and square wave voltammetry (SWV). The response of the electrochemical sensor indicates that the ZnO-NP/CPE electrode show a high performance electro analysis for Cd (II) and Hg (II). The suggested ZnO-NP electrode CPE has a linear straight line from 4.2 −21 µM and a lower detection limit (3σ) 4.2 for Cd (II) and 2.9 nM for Hg (II) under optimized experimental conditions. The elaborated sensor has been utilized with success for the simultaneous analysis of Cd (II) and Hg (II) in drinking water, and good results were achieved.