Facile synthesis of hexagonal-shaped zinc doped cobalt oxide: Application for electroanalytical determination of antibacterial drug ofloxacin in urine samples

Ofloxacin (OFX) is one of the antibacterial drugs is used to treat bacterial infections including bronchitis, chlamydia, pneumonia, skin infections, prostatic and urinary tract infections, etc. Conversely, improper use of OFX can rise the tensile strength of the bacteria. To reduce the risk of human intoxication and to avoid severe effects in the environment, the trace level determination of ofloxacin is very significant, it must be very cheap and accurate. Herein, we prepared the hexagonal-shaped Zn-Co₃O₄ by simple and facile coprecipitation approach, and it's employed as an effective electrocatalyst for the OFX sensor. The physical and chemical properties of Zn-Co₃O₄ characterized by XRD, FE-SEM, FTIR, and TEM. CV and DPV were applied to monitoring the electrochemical characterization. The Zn-Co₃O₄ shows the high electrocatalytic activity towards the OFX detection and it proved in our results. Especially, the proposed material required the ultralow potential (0.87 V) for OFX detection. The sensor displays the dynamic linear range of 1.5–110 µM with a low detection limit of 0.04 µM (S/N = 3). The proposed sensor is also displaying excellent stability, good anti-interference ability, and reusable. The Zn-Co₃O₄ modified electrode was applied to the OFX detection in human urine samples for real-time application with acceptable recovery results. In our result, we comment the Zn-Co₃O₄ is a promising electrode material for the OFX sensor.