Electrochemical sensor based on graphene and mesoporous TiO2 for the simultaneous determination of trace colourants in food

Currently, synthetic colourants draw much attention as food additives. This paper investigated the simultaneous electrocatalytic oxidation of sunset yellow and tartrazine, two yellow colourants commonly present in food together, with a novel voltammetric sensor based on graphene and mesoporous TiO2 modified carbon paste electrode. Due to the high accumulation effect and great catalytic capability of graphene and mesoporous TiO2, the developed sensor exhibited well-defined and separate square wave voltammetric peaks (i.e., 272 mV) for sunset yellow tartrazine. The peak currents of sunset yellow and tartrazine increased linearly with their concentration in the ranges of 0.02–2.05 μM and 0.02–1.18 μM, respectively. And the detection limit was 6.0 and 8.0 nM for sunset yellow and tartrazine, respectively. This new sensor was applied to determine sunset yellow and tartrazine in several food sample extracts. Results suggested that the proposed sensor was sensitive, rapid and reliable.