Simultaneous Electrochemical Quantification of Favipiravir and Molnupiravir as Antiviral Drugs for the Treatment of COVID-19 by Using a Glassy Carbon Electrode Modified by Pd/Co-Mn-MOF-74

Abstract

Electrochemical monitoring of Favipiravir (Favi) and Molnupiravir (Moln) as effective drugs for the treatment of COVID-19 was conducted. A modification of the glassy carbon electrode (GCE) with metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) was applied for the determination process by using the square wave voltammetry (SWV) technique.
Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX), and X-ray diffraction (XRD) techniques were applied to check the characterization of synthesized modified-MOFs. In Britton–Robinson buffer solutions (BR) with pH 7, two well-defined peaks appeared on the Pd/Co-Mn-MOF-74/GCE for 10 μM Moln and Favi were 423 and 1143 mV while the oxidation currents were 32.6 and 18.4 µA, respectively. The detection limit for Moln and Favi were calculated based on 3 signal/noise as 0.002 and 0.003 µM, respectively. The ability of the Pd/Co-Mn-MOF-74/GCE was checked by monitoring the Moln and Favi in urine and blood and comparing the obtained data with HPLC data. The obtained data were in good agreement with each other which demonstrates that the presented method was one of the best analytical methods for the monitoring of Moln and Favi in the laboratory.