Upcycling fruit peel waste into a green reductant to reduce graphene oxide for fabricating an electrochemical sensing platform for sulfamethoxazole determination in aquatic environments

Fruit and vegetable wastes contribute to a substantial proportion of global food waste. While these wastes could potentially be repurposed for a wide range of applications, the majority of them are discarded without effective utilization. To address the current challenges of fruit waste accumulation and sustainable nanomaterial synthesis, natural reductants derived from discarded dragon fruit (Hylocereus polyrhizus) peels are proposed as an alternative to conventional hazardous reductants for graphene-based material synthesis. Given that the chemical reduction of graphene oxide (GO) is the major route for graphene production, the effectiveness of the proposed reductants derived from peels of dragon fruit on graphene oxide reduction was evaluated. The reducing constituents (i.e., betanin substances) were recovered from dragon fruit peel wastes using facile aqueous extraction processes, where suitable extraction treatments (e.g., pH conditions) were found to be critical for boosting the reducing power of the obtained reductants. The compiled results indicated that the proposed fruit waste-derived reducing agents demonstrated great promise for GO reduction through SN2 nucleophilic reactions, mainly driven by the extracted betanin. The obtained reduced GO serves as a promising platform for electrochemical determination of sulfamethoxazole in aquatic environments, realizing both food waste valorization and environmentally benign material synthesis. [Display omitted] •GO was reduced by natural reductants derived from discarded dragon fruit peels.•Betanin reducing constituents were obtained using facile aqueous extraction.•The extracted betanin induces GO reduction through SN2 nucleophilic reactions.•The resultant rGO serves as a promising sensing platform for sulfamethoxazole.•Both waste valorization and environmentally benign material synthesis were realized.