Abstract:
Thioglycolic acid (TGA) is an organic compound widely used in cosmetics that cause various
health problems when overexposed to it. So far many attempts have been made to develop
methods for TGA determination. Therefore, a simple, cheap, and sensitive determination
method of TGA is highly desired. In this work, the electrochemical determination of TGA is
reported. The oxidation current response of TGA at the gold (Au) electrode is investigated
using cyclic voltammetry (CV) and linear sweep voltammetry (LSV) methods. A comparison
was made between the performance of glassy carbon (GC), Platinum (Pt), & Au electrodes
toward the determination of TGA. Due to the different interactions of the TGA at the
electrode surface, the Au electrode signal intensity of the developed method is much higher
than GC and Pt electrodes in acetate buffer. Under the optimized experimental conditions, the
electrode intensity has a direct relationship with the concentration of TGA in the range of 0.5
μM to 200 μM and a limit of detection (LOD) of 0.02 μM. The reported Au electrode has
further been applied to determine TGA in hair perm with acceptable recoveries.
