Platinum-modified screen-printed carbon electrode integrated with molecularly imprinted polymer for highly selective electrochemical ethanol sensing

Ethanol is a type of alcohol often found in beverages, medicines, and fermented products, so an acceptable ethanol detection method is needed. An accurate ethanol detection method is the chromatography method, but its weaknesses are high operational costs and non-portability. Therefore, in this study, an electrochemical analysis technique was developed that can overcome this problem combined with the development of molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) for ethanol. MIPs were synthesized using ethanol as a template, methacrylic acid (MAA) as a monomer, divinylbenzene (DVB) as a crosslinker, and benzoyl peroxide (BPO) as an initiator by cooling and heating with cooling at −5 °C for 1 h, and heating at 80 °C for 7 h. The results of the MIPs synthesis were suspended in distilled water and dropped on a screen-printed carbon electrode (SPCE) for electrochemical sensor applications. Previously, SPCE was modified platinum (Pt) by electrodeposition with optimum parameters at a potential of −0.3 V, electrodeposition time of 300 s, and Pt concentration of 0.15 mM. Testing of MIPs-based ethanol sensors electrochemically resulted in detection limits and quantification limits of 0.16 % and 0.28 % for a linear range of 0.5–10 % ethanol, with the precision represented by repeatability and recovery of 3.39 % and 94.94 %, respectively. The SPCE/Pt/MIPs electrochemical sensor can be used in ethanol detection for various analytical purposes.