Methanol, Ethanol, and Glycerol Oxidation by Graphite-Epoxy Composite Electrodes with Graphene-Anchored Nickel Oxyhydroxide Nanoparticles

In this work, a graphite-epoxy electrode with cyclic voltammetry electrodeposited reduced graphene oxide and nickel oxyhydroxide nanoparticles was prepared by decomposition in NaOH alkaline solution of cyclic voltammetry electrodeposited nickel hexacyanoferrate. FE-SEM studies were performed to confirm the NiOOH nanoparticle; the average size of the NiOOH nanoparticles was 61 ± 16 nm and EDX was applied to analyze chemical composition. To verify the performance of the prepared electrode, it was used in the electrooxidation of alcohols in alkaline medium by cyclic voltammetry. By performing different calibration experiments of methanol, ethanol, and glycerol, it was possible to extract some information about the electrode in the presence of alcohols. The LOD for methanol, ethanol, and glycerol were 2.16 mM, 2.73 mM and 0.09 mM, respectively, with sensitivity values of 1.32 µA mM−1, 1.80 µA mM−1 and 24.60 µA mM−1, respectively. Multivariate inspection of the data using Principal Component Analysis (performed with the ClustVis online tool) demonstrated the potential ability to discriminate between the different alcohols, whereas the explained variance with the first two components was as high as 89.7%.