A comparison study of MFe2O4 (M: Ni, Cu, Zn)-reduced graphene oxide nanocomposite for electrochemical detection of bisphenol A

·NiFe2O4-rGO have an enhanced signal than those of other prepared nanocomposites.·The sensor shows high sensitivity and selectivity to BPA.·The sensor has excellent anti-interference ability for determination of BPA. In this work, the electrocatalytic activities and the sensing performances of a series of metal ferrites (MFe2O4, M: Ni, Cu, Zn) - reduced graphene oxide (rGO) nanocomposite (MFe2O4-rGO) prepared through a hydrothermal method were examined by using DPV, CV and EIS techniques. The electrochemical results exhibited that NiFe2O4-rGO nanocomposite modified screen-printed electrode (SPE) has a higher sensing performance towards the oxidation of bisphenol A (BPA) than those of the other ferrite (CuFe2O4, ZnFe2O4)-based SPEs. After optimizing crucial parameters such as accumulation time, accumulation potential and electrolyte pH, the DPV responses of NiFe2O4-rGO/SPE increased linearly with BPA concentration in the range of 0.05 μM to 25 μM (R2 = 0.9976) with a low detection limit of 10 nM and a high sensitivity of 0.6132 μA μM−1. The specificity of the fabricated sensor towards BPA was assessed by analyzing the interference effect of some inorganic salt ions and phenol derivatives. In addition, the sensor prepared to detect BPA in the water bottle sample using only a few drops of the real sample diluted with 0.1 M phosphate buffer solution gave satisfactory responses.