Bismuth and Bismuth-Chitosan modified electrodes for determination of two synthetic food colorants by net analyte signal standard addition method

In this paper, an electrochemical application of bismuth film modified glassy carbon electrode for azo-colorants determination was investigated. Bismuth-film electrode (BiFE) was prepared by ex-situ depositing of bismuth onto glassy carbon electrode. The plating potential was −0.78 V (vs. SCE) in a solution of 0.15 mg mL−1 Bi(III) and 0.05 mg mL−1 KBr for 180 s. In the next step, a thin film of chitosan was deposited on the surface of bismuth modified glassy carbon electrode, thus the bismuth-chitosan thin film modified glassy carbon electrode (Bi-CHIT/GCE) was fabricated and compared with bare GCE and bismuth modified GCE.Azo-colorants such as Sunset Yellow and Carmoisine were determined on these electrodes by differential pulse voltammetry. Due to overlapping peaks of Sunset Yellow and Carmoisine, simultaneous determination of them is not possible, so net analyte signal standard addition method (NASSAM) was used for this determination. The results showed that coated chitosan can enhance the bismuth film sensitivity, improve the mechanical stability without caused contamination of surface electrode. The Bi-CHIT/GC electrode behaved linearly to Sunset Yellow and Carmoisine in the concentration range of 5×10−6 to 2.38×10−4 M and 1×10−6 to 0.41×10−4 M with a detection limit of 10 µM (4.52 µg mL−1) and 10 µM (5.47 µg mL−1), respectively