a b s t r a c tA novel modified electrode for voltammetric catechol determination was fabricated by electroploymerization of alizarin red S (ARS) onto a glassy carbon electrode (GCE) in one kind of room-temperature ionic liquid (1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate, BMIMBF 4 ). The polymeric ARS/ionic liquid (PARS/BMIMBF 4 ) film modified electrode was characterized by using scanning electron microscope (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and electrochemical methods. The EDX, XPS and FTIR results indicated that PARS/BMIMBF 4 film was successfully obtained. Compared with the GCE modified by electroploymerization of ARS in aqueous solution, the GCE modified by electroploymerization of ARS in BMIMBF 4 showed smoother and more compact morphology for coating and better electroanalytical properties. Given the combined electrochemical activity of PARS and excellent conductivity of BMIMBF 4 , the PARS/BMIMBF 4 /GCE has been successfully used for catechol determination by differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) with a linear range of 0.10 to 500 M. The sensitivity and detection limit are 42 nA/M and 0.026 M, respectively. The PARS/BMIMBF 4 modified electrode was successfully applied to the determination of catechol in real water samples and may serve as a simple but high-performance sensor for the determination of some environmental pollutants.