Sensitive voltammetric detection of clomipramine at 16-mercapto-hexadecanoic acid self-assembled monolayer modified gold electrode

Clomipramine, an effective and important antipsychotic drug with low redox activity and poor hydrophilicity, was found to effectively accumulate on hydrophobic 16-mercaptohexadecanoic acid (i.e. MHA) self-assembled monolayer (SAM) modified gold electrode (i.e. MHA/Au) and generating a sensitive anodic peak at about 0.86 V (vs. SCE) in 0.05 M Tris–HCl (pH = 8.1) buffer solution. Thus, quantitative measurement of clomipramine was established with high sensitivity under optimum conditions. The anodic peak current was linear to clomipramine concentration in the range from 1 × 10−6 to 5 × 10−5 M, with a detection limit of 6 × 10−9 M. This method was successfully applied to the detection of clomipramine in drug tablets and proved to be reliable compared to UV. The spectral features, electrochemical characteristics and wettability of MHA-SAM were also studied.