Abstract

A carbon paste electrode that was chemically modified with multiwall carbon nanotubes and p-aminophenol was used as a selective electrochemical sensor for the simultaneous detection of hydroxylamine (HX) and phenol. Cyclic voltammetry, double potential-step chronoamperometry, square wave voltammetry (SWV), and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy were used to investigate the use of p-aminophenol in the carbon nanotubes paste matrixes as a mediator for the electrocatalytic oxidation of HX and phenol in aqueous solution. The coefficient of electron transfer and catalytic reaction rate constant were determined using the electrochemical methods. Under optimized conditions, the electrocatalytic oxidation current peaks for HX and phenol increased linearly with concentration in the range of 0.5–180.0 and 10.0–650.0 μmol/L for HX and phenol, respectively. The detection limits for HX and phenol were 0.15 and 7.1 μmol/L, respectively. The anodic potential peaks of HX and phenol were separated by 0.65 V in SWV. Because of good selectivity and sensitivity, the present method provides a simple method for the selective detection of HX and phenol in practical samples such as water samples.