LAUSR

Abstract A novel poly vinyl alcohol supported cupric oxide nanocomposite (CuO/PVA) modified glassy carbon electrode (GCE) was developed for determination of mercury (II) ions by electrochemical methods. The CuO/PVA nanocomposite was synthesized by sonochemical method and characterized by spectral, analytical and electrochemical methods. Interestingly, cyclic voltammetry results exhibited that excellent electrocatalytic activity and improved sensitivity for the determination of Hg2+ ions bare to bare GCE under the optimized conditions. The CuO/PVA nanocomposite modified GCE for Hg2+ ion detection was provided a wide linear response range (10–70 μM) of response and lower detection limit (0.42 nM) respectively. The CuO/PVA/GCE showed good selectivity towards Hg2+ ion detection even in the presence of interferents such as arsenic, cadmium, lead, chromium and nickel. The proposed fabricated CuO/PVA/GCE sensor was exhibited good reproducibility for the selective determination of mercury in river and tap water and obtained good recovery results.