10.57647/jnsc.2025.1505.18

A High-Sensitivity Sensor with Simultaneous Enhanced Effect with Ionic Liquid and NiO/SWCNTs Catalysts to Create High-Performance Conditions for Vanillin Measurement

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  • Ebrahim Halalkhor-Mirkolayi1,
  • Azade Ghorbani-HasanSaraei*1,
  • Mohammad Bagher Limooei2,
  • Peiman Ariaii1,
  • Seyed-Ahmad Shahidi1,
  1. Department of Food Science and Technology, Am.C., Islamic Azad University, Amol, Iran
  2. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Am.C., Islamic Azad University, Amol, Iran

Received: 22-08-2025

Revised: 28-09-2025

Accepted: 08-10-2025

Published in Issue 15-10-2025

Copyright (c) 2025 Ebrahim Halalkhor-Mirkolayi, Azade Ghorbani-HasanSaraei, Mohammad Bagher Limooei, Peiman Ariaii, Seyed-Ahmad Shahidi (Author)

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

Halalkhor-Mirkolayi, E., Ghorbani-HasanSaraei, A., Limooei, M. B., Ariaii, P., & Shahidi, S.-A. (2025). A High-Sensitivity Sensor with Simultaneous Enhanced Effect with Ionic Liquid and NiO/SWCNTs Catalysts to Create High-Performance Conditions for Vanillin Measurement. Journal of Nanostructure in Chemistry, 15(5 (October 2025). https://doi.org/10.57647/jnsc.2025.1505.18
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Abstract

Paying attention to the quality of food products and examining its additives, as well as controlling their concentration, are among the most important issues in the food industry. Therefore, various methods of measuring food additives have been proposed in recent years. The present study designed and investigated the performance of an electrochemical sensor prepared with carbon paste (CP) that was simultaneously modified using NiO/SWCNTs nanocomposite and ionic liquid (1-Hexyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate; [HMIM][BF4]), and evaluated its effect on the oxidation signal of vanillin in food samples. The NiO/SWCNTs nanocomposite was synthesized as conductive catalyst with high surface area by chemical precipitation method and characterized by SEM and MAP analysis. The presence of the NiO/SWCNTs nanocomposite and [HMIM][BF4]increased the oxidation current by 3.22 times and reduced the vanillin oxidation overvoltage by 225 mV, indicating the synergistic role of the two catalysts in the construction of the  NiO/SWCNTs/[HMIM][BF4]/PE. The effective parameters such as type of buffer, pH, percentage of catalysts were optimized and results showed phosphate buffer (pH=6.0) can be use as optimum condition in monitoring process. In addition, 20% (v:v) of [HMIM][BF4] and 15% (w:w) of NiO/SWCNTs were selected as optimum condition for fabrication of NiO/SWCNTs/[HMIM][BF4]/PE. The NiO/SWCNTs/[HMIM][BF4]/PE showed a detection limit 0.3 nM for monitoring of vanillin. In the final stage, NiO/SWCNTs/[HMIM][BF4]/PE was used for monitoring of vanillin in different food samples such as biscuit, chocolate and coffee milk with acceptable recovery data.

Keywords

  • NiO/SWCNTs nanocomposite,
  • Vanillin,
  • -Hexyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate,
  • Electrochemical sensor,
  • Food analysis
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