Determination of methotrexate using carbon paste electrode modified with ionic liquid/Ni-Co layered double hydroxide nanosheets as a voltammetric sensor.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

Methotrexate (MTX) is a widely used anti-cancer drug, but its overuse can lead to significant side effects. Therefore, it is very vital to design simple and sensitive analytical methods for its determination.

EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH

In this work, an electrochemical sensor was prepared based on an ionic liquid (IL)/Ni-Co layered double hydroxide nanosheets (Ni-Co-LDH)-modified carbon paste electrode IL/Ni-Co-LDH/CPE. Cyclic voltammetry, differential pulse voltammetry, and chronoamperometry methods were applied to evaluate the performance of the designed sensor for MTX determination.

KEY RESULTS

The IL/Ni-Co-LDH/CPE sensor exhibits a linear relationship between the peak current of the differential pulse voltammetry and MTX concentrations in the linear dynamic range of 0.02 to 140.0 μM, with a detection limit of 0.006 μM. The IL/Ni-Co-LDH/CPE sensor exhibited relative standard deviation values between 1.7 to 3.7 % for recovery tests on real samples, indicating the precision of the method.

CONCLUSION

The designed sensor with cost-effective and good performance could be valuable for therapeutic drug monitoring and clinical diagnostics.