Detonation Nanodiamonds as a New Tool for Phenol Detection in Aqueous Medium

This paper demonstrates the effectiveness of using detonation nanodiamonds (DNDs) for detecting phenol in aqueous medium. The study has shown that the catalytic effect of DNDs in the oxidative azo coupling reaction (phenol-4-aminoantipyrine-hydrogen peroxide) is produced by trace amounts of iron and copper ions adsorbed on the surface of nanoparticles. The effectiveness of DNDs as a catalyst is determined by the amounts of these adsorbates and can be enhanced by a factor of two by additional adsorption of these ions onto the nanoparticles. A rise in the temperature of the DND-catalyzed azo coupling reaction leads to a considerable (4.5-fold) increase in the reaction product yield. DNDs used to detect phenol in aqueous medium enable a linear increase in the yield of the product of the azo coupling reaction at concentrations of the analyte of between 0.05 and 10 μg/ml. The study demonstrates that DNDs can be reused to detect phenol in water samples.