Tailoring the electrochemical interface of mesoporous carbon with ubiquinone for detection of parabens in cosmetics

Quality assessment of paraben in cosmetic products is in need to avoid and control the deadly side effect caused in humans. Though, there are various studies reported on sensing paraben electrochemically, the use of chemical modifiers is restricted to carbon based materials due to its efficiency but, the mesoporous carbon with high surface area and electron transfer property is hitherto unexplored. Here, we have investigated the sensing of paraben and its derivatives by using ubiquinone (Q10) introduced mesoporous carbon (MPC) via cyclic voltammetric (CV) and differential pulse voltammetric (DPV) techniques. The morphological studies of MPC showed rod shaped structure. The pore size and the pore volume were found to be 3.93 nm and 0.4 cm(3)/g respectively. The fabricated sensor showed good electrocatalytic activity for detecting methyl, ethyl and propyl paraben with the detection limit of 0.26 mu M, 0.3 mu M and 1.07 mu M, respectively. Real time measurements of the modification were further utilized for commercially available cosmetic samples.