Electrochemical Scaffold Based on Silver Phosphate Nanoparticles for the Quantification of Acetaminophen in Body Fluids and Pharmaceutical Formulations

Herein, we present the electrochemical scaffold for the quantification of acetaminophen (ACAP) using a silver phosphate nanoparticle (Ag–P NP) fabricated screen-printed carbon electrode (SPCE). The Ag–P NPs were synthesized by a facile method through simply refluxing the reaction mixture of AgNO₃ and Na₂HPO₄ at 120 °C in the presence of citric acid followed by calcination. The obtained Ag–P NPs were characterized by Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) and UV–vis diffused reflectance spectroscopies, X-ray diffraction (XRD), and electron microscopic tools. The as-prepared Ag–P NPs exhibited the bandgap energy of 2.2 eV, and the prepared Ag–P NPs have a sphere-like morphology with 13 nm average size. The main strategy of this study lies in providing the electrocatalytic oxidation of ACAP at the surface of the Ag–P NPs modified electrode. The developed sensor was applied to determine ACAP from commercial drugs and human fluids. The Ag-P NPs modified electrode detects ACAP in the linear concentration of 0.1–1900 μM with the lowest detection limit of 0.39 nM (S/N = 3) with the superior sensitivity of 2244.4 μA/μM·cm². Further, the developed sensor showed excellent specificity, sensitivity, reproducibility, and stability compared to the previously reported sensors. Finally, the developed sensor has been exploited to testify the practicability by determining the concentration of ACAP from pharmaceutical samples and human fluids. The synthesized Ag–P NPs were also utilized for antibacterial studies against Staphylococcus aureus and Aspergillus niger.