Electrochemical determination of vanillin in food samples by using pyrolyzed graphitic carbon nitride

Rapid detection of vanillin in food samples is important in food safety. In this work, lamellar C3N4 sheets were prepared by simple pyrolysis of melamine. The as-prepared C3N4 sheets were used to fabricate a vanillin electrochemical sensor. C3N4 was also successfully used to modify glassy carbon electrode and exhibited excellent sensing performance. Under the optimized condition, the prepared electrochemical sensor could linearly detect vanillin between 20 nM to 10 μM and 15 μM–200 μM with a low detection limit of 4 nM. In addition, the vanillin sensor was applied to detect vanillin in milk tea and biscuits.