Ni(OH)2 nanoarrays based molecularly imprinted polymer electrochemical sensor for sensitive detection of sulfapyridine

Abstract

Molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) electrochemical sensor (MIP-EC sensor) has great potential in the electroanalytical chemistry field, especially in detection of small molecular contaminants, but still remains severe challenges, such as low reproducibility and low sensitivity. To overcome these difficulties, nanoarray electrodes as sensitive sensor platforms is an excellent selection for fabricating MIP-EC sensors. In this communication, Ni(OH)2nanoarrays in situ grown on nickel foam (Ni(OH)2/NF) was prepared and used as sensing platform. The MIPs in situ adsorbed on Ni(OH)2/NF (MIP/Ni(OH)2/NF) was prepared and used as the specific identification part to the template molecule. Accompanied with [Fe(CN)6]3−/[Fe(CN)6]4- as the redox probe and differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) as the detection method, the MIP-EC sensor for sensitive detection of sulfapyridine was simply developed. Under optimized conditions, the presented MIP-EC sensor exhibits the linear range of 5.9 × 10-7–1.34 × 10-3mol L-1 and the low limit of detection (LOD) of 3.57 × 10-7mol L-1 (S/N = 3). Furthermore, due to the good electric properties of Ni(OH)2/NF electrode and specific recognition properties of MIPs, the MIP-EC sensor shows a high imprinting efficiency, exhibits excellent selectivity, sensitivity, stability and reproducibility. This study provided an efficient and simple approach for detection of sulfapyridine in fish products, and provided a promising and potential approach for detecting small molecular contaminants in many fields.