Design and construction of an electrochemical sensor for the determination of cerium(iii) ions in petroleum water samples based on a Schiff base-carbon nanotube as an ionophore

A carbon paste sensor (CPE) and screen-printed sensor (SPE) for Ce(iii)-selective determination were prepared using a 2,6-pyridine dicarbomethine-triethylene tetraamine macrocyclic Schiff base ligand (PDCTETA) and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) as good sensing materials. With respect to most common cations, such as alkali, alkaline earth, transition, and heavy metal ions, the electrodes display high selectivity for the Ce(iii) ion. The sensors respond to Ce(iii) ions in a linear range of 1 × 10(−7) to 1 × 10(−1) and 1 × 10(−8) to 1 × 10(−1) mol L(−1) with a slope of 18.96 ± 0.73 and 19.63 ± 0.51 mV per decade change in concentration with a detection limit of 1.10 × 10(−8) and 5.24 × 10(−9) mol L(−1) for CPE (sensor IV) and SPE (sensor VIII), respectively. The sensors were found to have a lifetime of 102 and 200 days. The suggested electrodes performed well throughout the pH ranges of 3.5–8.0 and 3.0–8.5, with response times of 8 and 6 seconds for sensor IV and sensor VIII, respectively. The sensors have been used to measure Ce(iii) ions in water samples from several petroleum wells. They have also been utilized as indicator electrodes in Ce(iii) ion potentiometric titrations with EDTA. The results were quite similar to those obtained by employing atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS).