Highly enantioselective electrochemical sensing based on helicoid Au nanoparticles with intrinsic chirality

Abstract

Chiral discrimination has played significant roles in food science, pharmaceutical science, medical science, and biology. As such, design of electrochemical chiral sensors with high enantiomeric discrimination ability and service life is highly desirable. Herein, helicoid Au nanoparticles with intrinsic chirality were synthesized and utilized to construct an electrochemical chiral sensor for the first time. Notably, nearly 6 times difference of peak currents was observed for tyrosine (Tyr) enantiomers by differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) method. To the best of our knowledge, it is the best result reported so far in electrochemical enantiomers detection, which is sufficient to enable an accurate determination of the enantiomeric purity and composition of the Tyr analytes. The obtained chiral electrodes were also applied to determine the L-Tyr contents in L-Tyr capsules, beer and milk. These results highlight the tremendous potential of using Au nanoparticles with intrinsic chirality to build chiral recognition interface for enantiomers recognition and offer the promise of practical application of electrochemical chiral sensors.