Highly Sensitive Electrochemical Detection of 2,4‐Dichlorophenoxyacetic Acid Using Bare Screen‐Printed Carbon Electrode

We report an electrochemical method for the highly sensitive detection of the widely used chlorinated aromatic herbicide 2,4‐dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4‐D) using a bare screen‐printed carbon electrode. Experimental conditions were optimized, yielding a pulse amplitude of 150 mV, a sample of pH of 2.0, and an electrolyte concentration of 0.5 M. Under these conditions, the method exhibited a linear response from 2 to 100 µM ( R 2 = 0.9963), with an LOQ of 2.1 µM and an LOD of 0.7 µM. The sensitivity of the sensor is 0.8055 µA µM −1 , and the sensitivity normalized for the active surface area of the electrode is 6.2 µA µM −1 cm −2 . The overall performance of the proposed method is better or similar, compared to some of the modified electrodes used in recent studies reported in the literature for 2,4‐D sensing. The method showed good electrode‐to‐electrode reproducibility of the signal and reusability of the sensor for the detection of 2,4‐D in different solutions using the same electrode. The developed method also showed acceptable percentage recoveries (ranging from 80.1% to 112.0 %) when used for the detection of 2,4‐D spiked in real water samples from different sources.