Sensitive and fast determination of papaverine by adsorptive stripping voltammetry on renewable mercury film electrode

The renewable mercury film electrode, applied for the determination of papaverine traces using differential pulse adsorptive stripping voltammetry (DP AdSV) is presented. The calibration graph obtained for papaverine is linear from 1.25 nM (0.42 µg L−1) to 95 nM (32.2 µg L−1) for a preconcentration time of 60 s, with correlation coefficient of 0.998. For the renewable mercury electrode (Hg(Ag)FE) with a surface area of 9.1 mm2 the detection limit for a preconcentration time of 60 s is 0.7 nM (0.24 µg L−1). The repeatability of the method at a concentration level of the analyte as low as 17 µg L−1, expressed as RSD is 3.3% (n=5). The proposed method was successfully applied and validated by studying the recovery of papaverine from drugs, urine and synthetic solution.