Deep eutectic solvent assisted synthesis of molybdenum nitride entrapped graphene aerogel heterostructure with enhanced electrochemical behavior for ronidazole drug detection

In the wake of the ascendancy of pharmaceutics to the forefront of modern-era medicine, antibiotic usage has seen an exponential increase. However, as an inevitable corollary of its misuse, the deleterious aftereffects of antibiotic pollution have emerged globally as a pressing health concern. Ronidazole (RND), a popular veterinary antibiotic and growth promoter, is ill-famed for its carcinogenic, genotoxic, and mutagenic properties. A recurring challenge that curtails the quantitative monitoring of RND is the lack of sensing devices with pronounced detection characteristics. Owing to the unparalleled wealth of synergistic features, nanocomposite architectures featuring transition metal nitrides and graphene aerogels have garnered tremendous attention among the scientific community. In this study, we propose a molybdenum nitride entrapped graphene aerogel (MoN@GA) nanocomposite synthesized via a deep eutectic solvent (DES) assisted procedure. The choline chloride–urea DES system allows for a more energy-efficient production of MoN and adorns the role of a multifunctional agent and acts simultaneously as a solvent, reducing agent, and nitridation agent. The prepared MoN@GA nanocomposite is utilized as the working electrode for the electrochemical detection of RND. The superior active surface area and conductivity of GA-anchored MoN can efficiently overcome the kinetic barrier for ion transport. The optimized MoN@GA glassy carbon electrode (GCE) showed a wide response range of 0.001–918.44 μM with a detection limit of 1.3 nM and high sensitivity of 78.65 μA μM−1 cm−2 toward RND. Furthermore, the developed sensor is unaffected by the presence of other similar interferons. Under optimal conditions, a proof-of-concept amperometric analysis of RND was performed using a MoN@GA modified electrochemical system, and an acceptable recovery value of ±97.4–99.93% was obtained.