Usefulness of palladium impregnated magnetite nanoparticles for polyphenol determination

Palladium impregnated magnetite nanoparticles (Pd-Fe3O4NPs) have been synthesized and used as reusable catalyst for the fluorometric determination of polyphenols in wines. The method is based on the decrease of the indocyanine green fluorescence, which is ascribed to its oxidation by dissolved oxygen in the presence of the nanoparticles, and the inhibition of the fluorescence decrease by polyphenols, which is proportional to the polyphenol concentration. The dynamic range of the calibration graph is 0.1-10.0µM gallic acid, which was chosen as model analyte, and the detection limit is 0.02µM. Precision data, expressed as relative standard deviation, ranged between 3.3% and 5.4%. The method was applied to the analysis of several wine samples, obtaining recovery values in the range of 79.7-102.0%. The results obtained were compared with those obtained using the Folin-Ciocalteu and laccase methods, finding that Pd-Fe3O4NPs provide a better selectivity than the first method and show a catalytic behavior similar to that of laccase.