In this work, new strategies were developed to prepare
1D-V2MoO8 (VMO) rods from 2D V-doped MoSe2 nanosheets (VMoSe2) with good control over morphology
and crystallinity by a facile hydrothermal and calcination process.
The morphological changes from 2D to 1D rods were controlled by changing
the calcination temperature from 300 to 600 °C. The elimination
of Se and the incorporation of O into the V–Mo structure were
evaluated by TGA, p-XRD, Raman, FE-SEM, EDAX, FE-TEM, and XPS analyses.
These results prove that the optimization of the physical parameters
leads to changes in the crystal phase and textural properties of the
prepared material. The VMoSe2 and its calcined products
were investigated as electrochemical sensors for the detection of
the antibacterial drug nitrofurantoin (NFT). At a calcination temperature
of 500 °C, the modified screen-printed carbon electrodes (SPCE)
proved to be an excellent electrochemical sensor for the detection
of NFT in neutral media. Under the optimized conditions, VMO-500 °C/SPCE
exhibits low detection limit (LOD) (0.015 μM), wide linear ranges
(0.1–31, 47–1802 μM), good sensitivity, and selectivity.
The proposed sensor was successfully used for the analysis of NFT
in real samples with good recovery results. Moreover, the reduction
potential of NFT agreed well with the theoretical analysis using quantum
chemical calculations, with the B3LYP with 6-31G(d,p) basis set predicting
an E
0 value of −0.45 V. The interaction
between the electrode surface and NFT via the LUMO diagram and the
electrostatic potential surface is also discussed.