Polyaniline-chitosan modified on screen-printed carbon electrode for the electrochemical detection of perfluorooctanoic acid

[Display omitted] •PANI-CHT SPCE was prepared for electrochemical sensing of PFOA.•An excellent electro-oxidation activity towards the detection of PFOA was accomplished.•Highly sensitive and selective determination of PFOA with LOD in ppb range was recorded.•This electrochemical sensor was successful for determination of PFOA in water sample. The overwhelming utilisation of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) for household and industrial applications has posed a severe risk to human health and environmental pollution. Therefore, this study was performed to fabricate a polyaniline-chitosan (PANI-CHT) composite using CHT extracted from crab shells and modified with Screen-Printed Carbon Electrode (SPCE) for the development of an electrochemical sensor to detect PFOA. The physicochemical properties of CHT, PANI, and PANI-CHT were characterised using ATR-FTIR, XRD and SEM-EDX. In addition, the electrochemical performance of the SPCE-modified PANI-CHT 1:1 composite was evaluated through cyclic voltammetry (CV) and differential pulse voltammetry (DPV). Based on the results, PANI-CHT 1:1 showed a linear correlation coefficient of R2 = 0.9954 with a LOD of 1.08 ppb in a linear range of 5–150 ppb. The physicochemical analyses demonstrate the successful blending of CHT with PANI, which enhanced the effective active sites on the surface of SPCE. Upon the practical assessment of the fabricated composite using spiked water samples, the sensor recorded an acceptable recovery percentage range of 96–103 %. Overall, the proposed sensor exhibited great sensitivity, excellent reproducibility, and good stability for the detection of PFOA and with a promising performance.