Green synthesis of silver nanoparticles (SNPs)-modified electrode for electrochemical detection of nitrobenzene

Nitrobenzene (NB) is a highly toxic and hazardous compound that needs to be detected at the low level. The current work describes an eco-friendly synthesis of silver nanoparticles (SNPs) using a Eucalyptus extract as reducing and stabilizing agent and its use for electrochemical detection of NB. The synthesized SNPs were characterized by following techniques UV–visible spectroscopy, powder X-ray diffraction, FESEM, HRTEM and TEM, FTIR spectroscopy. Further electrochemical investigation of SNPs-modified glassy carbon electrode (SNPs/GCE) is carried out by cyclic voltammetric and differential pulse voltammetric techniques. The prepared NPs exhibit excellent electrochemical behaviour towards reduction of NB and show a linear response in the range 5–40 µM, sensitivity of 2.262 µA µM−1 cm−2 and limit of detection of 0.027 µM. SNPs/GCE shows good selectivity towards NB detection. Also, the system exhibits a considerable recovery towards NB detection in of water and waste samples.