Heterostructures of mesoporous TiO2 and SnO2 nanocatalyst for improved electrochemical oxidation ability of vitamin B6 in pharmaceutical tablets

Abstract The detection of water soluble vitamins using electrochemical method is widely established in pharmaceutical quality control laboratories, and especially the recent advances in hybrid heterostrucure nanomaterials has devoted to enhance the significant analytical parameters like sensitivity, selectivity and fast response time. Herein, we report the synthesis of a hybrid heterostructure comprising SnO 2 nanoparticles supported mesoporous TiO 2 , and the obtained nanocomposite were fabricated over glassy carbon electrode (GCE) for the electrochemical oxidation of vitamin B 6 in pharmaceutical tablets. The designed SnO 2 -TiO 2 /GC modified electrode exhibits well-defined oxidation peak with lowering over-potential and larger signal response compared to the pristine counterparts, and it is mainly due to the formation of abundant active surface layer offered by SnO 2 cocatalyst, and thus significantly enhances the electrochemical surface area. Differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) measurements revealed a sharp increase in the anodic peak current upon addition of increasing concentration of vitamin B 6 . The analytical performance of the modified electrode displayed a wide linear range (0.1–31.4 µM), high selectivity, and excellent sensitivity (759.73 µA mM −1  cm −2 ) with low detection limit (35 nM). Thus, the resultant mesoporous hybrid nanocatalyst provides an efficient electrochemical platform for determination of various potential analytes.