It is pivotal to precisely detect food preservatives to ascertain food quality and safety. In this work, we report the sensitive electrochemical detection of widely used cytotoxic food preservative tert-butylhydroquinone (TBHQ). A novel nanocomposite was sonochemically prepared by embedding ternary metal oxide (TMO) comprising ZnO, CuO, and MgO in β-cyclodextrin (β-CD) functionalized carbon black (CB). The properties of the prepared nanocomposite were evaluated by employing multiple characterization methods. The nanocomposite fabricated on a screen printed carbon electrode exhibited exceptional electrocatalytic activity towards TBHQ detection, evident from the resultant very low detection limit of 1 nM and high sensitivity of 22.67 μA μM-1 cm-2. Moreover, the developed TBHQ sensor evinced all the important traits of a good electrochemical sensor including excellent selectivity, stability, reproducibility, and repeatability. Furthermore, for validating practical feasibility of TBHQ detection, we successfully determined this food additive in edible oils.

Department of Chemical Engineering College of Engineering King Saud University P O Box 800 Riyadh 11421 Saudi Arabia; King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy Energy Research and Innovation Center Riyadh 11451 Saudi Arabia

Department of Electrical Engineering National Taipei University of Technology No 1 Section 3 Zhongxiao East Road Taipei 106 Taiwan ROC

Department of Machinery Construction Institute for Nanomaterials Advanced Technologies and Innovation Technical University of Liberec Studentská 1402 2 461 17 Liberec 1 Czech Republic

Institute of Organic and Polymeric Materials National Taipei University of Technology No 1 Section 3 Zhongxiao East Road Taipei 106 Taiwan ROC

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