Carbon Nanotube-Based Electrochemical Sensor for the Determination of Anthraquinone Hair Dyes in Wastewaters

The present work describes the development of a voltammetric sensor for the selective determination of Acid Green 25 (AG25) hair dye, widely used in commercial temporary hair dyes. The method is based on a glassy carbon electrode modified with multiwalled carbon nanotubes activated in the presence of sulfuric acid, where the anthraquinone group present as a chromophore in the dye molecule is reduced at −0.44 V vs. Ag/AgCl in a reversible process involving two electrons in Britton-Robinson (B-R) buffer solution at pH 4.0. Analytical curves were obtained using square wave voltammetry in the range from 1.0 × 10 to 7.0 × 10 mol·L, achieving a detection limit of 2.7 × 10 mol·L. The voltammograms recorded for the Acid Black 1 (AB1) dye showed that the azo groups of the dye were reduced on the carbon nanotube-modified electrode (CNTME), presenting a pair of redox peaks at −0.27 V and −0.24 V in the reverse scan. Under these experimental conditions, both dyes could be detected in the water sample, since the AG25 dye is reduced at −0.47 V. The presence of other hair dyes bearing other chromophore groups, such as Acid Black 1, Acid Red 33 and basic blue 99, did not interfere with the method, which showed an average recovery of 96.7 ± 3.5% (n = 5) for AG25 dye determination in the presence of all of these dyes. The method was successfully applied to tap water and wastewater samples collected from a water treatment plant. OPEN ACCESS Chemosensors 2015, 3 23