A simple electrochemical method for the determination of hydroxyl free radicals without separation process

Generally speaking, measurement of hydroxylated radical products of salicylic acid requires a fussy separation process. In this study, we describe a simple method to electrochemically detect hydroxyl radicals (OH) using 4-hydroxybenzoic acid (4-HBA) as the OH trap. The OH is generated by the Fenton reaction from iron (II) sulfate and hydrogen peroxide in a phosphate buffer solution. Experimental results show that our method can detect the OH with high sensitivity without any separation process. The differential pulse voltammetric responses show a linear dependence on the concentration of OH in a range of 2.0 × 10−6 and 1.0 × 10−3 M with a determination limit down to 5.0 × 10−7 M. As a demonstration, the kinetics of the Fenton reaction was mapped by measuring the reaction product of hydroxyl radical trapped by 4-HBA. The result is in good agreement with that reported previously. All the results show that the present approach could provide a simple, inexpensive and promising method for biomedicine and iatrology.