Activated charcoal as a capture material for dopamine, paracetamol and salicylic acid in human blood and pharmaceutical formulations

In this work, the authors present an activated carbon modified carbon paste electrode that has superior electrocatalytic activity for the electro-oxidation of dopamine (DA), paracetamol (PCT) and salicylic acid (SA). This excellent electrochemical performance was referred to the porous structure of activated carbon, surface functional groups existing in activated carbon surface and the electron donor–acceptor complex mechanism assumes that the aromatic rings of the drugs act as the electron acceptors. However, the reaction mechanisms of the corresponding electrode were studied in detail in this article. Additionally, under the optimized experimental conditions, DA, SA and PCT exhibit a linear response over the range of 0.1–1000.0 μmol L−1, with the low detection limits of 0.0313 μmol L−1, 0.0282 μmol L−1 and 0.0487 μmol L−1 for DA, PCT and SA, respectively. Furthermore, the AC-CPE showed a high sensitivity, good reproducibility and high stability. The proposed method was applied successfully for the detection of DA, PCT and SA in human blood and pharmaceutical formulations with satisfactory recovery. [Display omitted] •A sensitive electrochemical sensor of DA, PCT and SA was successfully developed.•AC/CPE shows good electrocatalytic performance for simultaneous detecting drugs.•Proposed sensor exhibited good reproducibility, stability and low detection limit.•Developed method was satisfactorily applied to analyze the drugs in real samples.