Voltammetric Electronic Tongue based on Carbon Paste Electrodes modified with Biochar for Phenolic Compounds Stripping Detection

© 2019 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim Biochar is a charcoal produced from the biomass pyrolysis process that presents a highly porous and functionalized surface. In the present work an array of carbon paste electrodes (CPE) made of different forms of carbon (graphite, carbon nanotubes and activated biochar) was evaluated in the development of an electronic tongue for discrimination and stripping voltammetric determination of catechol (CAT), 4-ethylcatechol (4-EC) and 4-ethylguaiacol (4-EG) phenolic compounds. Morphological characterization of carbon materials and electrodes surfaces was performed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and semi-quantitative elemental composition by energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) measurements were used for electrochemical characterization of electrodes. Cyclic voltammetry measurements were performed for the phenolic compounds evaluated using different concentrations. Principal component analysis (PCA) was performed to evaluate the qualitative analysis. Quantitative data modeling was done using artificial neural networks (ANN). The proposed sensor array presented analytical potentiality allowing the distinction and determination of CAT, 4-EC and 4-EG by using chemometric processing. The method showed sensibility, reproducibility and a good linearity (R2>0.9940) for three compounds evaluated. Spontaneous preconcentration of three compounds was possible using all three sensors, which can allow the application of these as passive samplers for remote determinations of phenolic compounds in wine and food samples.