The nanohybrid of gold nanorods (AuNRs) decorated graphene oxide (GO) nanosheets was proposed to modify the glassy carbon electrode (GCE). Cyclic voltammetry was applied for the reduction of GO:The decorated AuNRs can facilitate the electrochemical reduction of GO. The characterization was performed by AFM, FT-IR, TEM, UV-Vis spectroscopy, and Raman spectroscopy. Due to the huge surface area, high sorption capacity, and subtle electronic properties, the electro-reduced gold nanorods decorated graphene oxide (ERGO-AuNRs) displayed high accumulation efficiency as well as considerable surface enhancement effects for the electro-oxidation of sunset yellow (SY) and tartrazine (TZ). Under the optimized experiment conditions, the present ERGO-AuNRs modified electrode showed linear response to SY and TZ in concentration range of 0.01-3.0 mu M and 0.03-6.0 mu M with a detection limit of 2.4 and 8.6 nM, respectively. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.