Ionic liquid based polymeric liposomes: A stable and biocompatible soft platform for bioelectrochemistry

Abstract

Polymeric liposomes (denoted as ILs-polysomes) are a biocompatible and conductive nanomaterial, which was first utilised as the electrode material for immobilising and biosensing redox enzyme horseradish peroxide (HRP). The morphology and surface property of IL-polysomes was characterised and systematically compared with unpolymerised ionic liquid based liposomes (denoted as ILs-liposomes). Differing from IL-liposomes, IL-polysomes preserves their original morphology and bilayer membrane structure on glassy carbon (GC) electrodes due to the cross-linking of polymerised lipids, thus exhibiting excellent stability and specific biocompability. Because of the existence of imidazolium ionic liquid moieties on the outer surface, IL-polysomes displays a positive charge in aqueous solution, leading to oppositely charged HRP self-assembling onto the vesicles to form HRP/IL-polysomes/PVA/GC electrodes. Owing to the combined merits of ILs and liposomes, electron transfer between HRP-FeIII/FeII redox couples of immobilised enzymes and GC electrodes can be achieved. Therefore, HRP/IL-polysomes/PVA/GC electrodes exhibited good electrocatalytic performance toward the electrocatalysis of H2O2. Accordingly, IL-polysomes could act as an efficient charged platform for the self-assembled redox enzymes to realise direct electrochemistry. IL-polysomes have a promising application in the fabrication of third-generation electrochemical biosensors.