Tailored architecture of molybdenum carbide/iron oxide micro flowers with graphitic carbon nitride: An electrochemical platform for nano-level detection of organophosphate pesticide in food samples

•Fe3O4@MoC nanoflowers adorned g-CN is designed for the first time.•The ternary hybrid nanocomposite shows high catalytic performance to PAT detection.•The developed sensor has low detection limit (7.8 nM), and high sensitivity for PAT detection. Herein we report the ternary hybrid nanocomposite of iron oxide @ molybdenum carbide micro flowers decorated graphitic-carbon nitride (Fe3O4@MoC MFs/g-CN), as a catalyst for the detection of organophosphorus pesticide, parathion (PAT), for the first time. The growth of hierarchical nanostructure from the core level will facilitate easy diffusion of analyte and interact more effectively with the reactive catalytic sites. Thus, Fe3O4 NFs architecture was hydrothermally grown over MoC flakes from the core level, which further hybridized with g-CN to ensure electrical conductivity and mechanical stability. Experimental results demonstrate that Fe3O4@MoC MFs/g-CN/GCE has superior catalytic efficacy for PAT reduction. At optimum conditions, the proposed sensor exhibits a low detection limit (7.8 nM), high sensitivity, and wide linear range (0.5–600 µM) toward PAT detection. The satisfactory test results of the food samples indicate that the Fe3O4@MoC MFs/g-CN/GCE sensor can be used as an excellent candidate for real-time PAT detection.