Preparation of polyaniline modified electrode in novel ionic liquid and its application in ion chromatography

In this work, a promising electrochemical detector has been fabricated by immersing a glass carbon electrode (GCE) in aniline containing novel ionic liquid and scanning between -1.0 and 1.0 V for 40 cycles, and was used in ion chromatography (IC) system. The morphology of the modified electrode surface was characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM). The polyaniline (PANI) film showed excellent electrocatalytic activity than bare GCE and provided enhanced selectivity and stability for the detection of ascorbic acid (AA). Separated by IC with phosphate buffer solution (pH = 5.2) as eluent, AA could be determined by the PANI/GCE successfully at the working potential of 0.3 V. The retention time of AA was approximately 5.75 min, and the peak shape of AA was satisfactory. The calibration curve of AA was linear (r > 0.99), in the range between 0.05 mg/L and 1000 mg/L and the detection limit was 23.41 μg/L (S/N = 3). The proposed method was successfully applied in the detection of AA in four beverage samples. The recoveries of AA in these samples were from 92.32% to 110.57%.