Effective water purification and dopamine sensor under visible light with functionalised multi-walled carbon nanotubes and TiO2 based nanocomposites

Advances in nanomaterials enable humanity to advance faster in the field of technology. In this study, TiO2@fMWCNT nanocomposite was obtained by using titanium oxide (TiO2) nanoparticles obtained by sol-gel method and functionalized multiwalled carbon nanotube (f-MWCNT) as a supporting material. The synthesized nanocomposite was characterized by Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), and X-ray diffraction (XRD), and the chemical and morphological structure was examined. This nanocomposite has revealed important findings in the fields of analytical chemistry and environmental science. The study focused on two different objectives. First, the development of a disposable electrochemical sensor for dopamine detection was aimed. This sensor has a wide range of Limit of Detection (LOD) and Limit of Quantification (LOQ) values for dopamine detection; 25.48 mu M and 77 mu M, respectively. In the other application, photocatalytic activity under visible light was investigated for wastewater treatment applications. TiO2 is known as a promising photocatalyst in water purification. However, its high band gap and fast electron/hole pair recombination rate limit its efficiency under visible light. To solve this problem, f-MWCNT was chosen as the support material. According to these findings, a sensor for the development of new sensing technologies for the detection of photocatalysts and dopamine for the cleaning of wastewater was obtained.