Photostimulus-Responsive Peptide Dot-Centered Covalent Organic Polymers: Effective Pesticide Sensing via Enhancing Accessibility.

Abstract

Pesticide detection and monitoring are necessary for human health as the overapplication has serious consequences for environmental pollution. Herein, a proper modulation strategy was implemented to construct the photostimulus-responsive peptide-dot-centered covalent organic polymer (P-PCOP) nanoarchitecture for selective sensing of pesticides. The as-constructed P-PCOP was prepared at room temperature by using amino-containing peptide dots as a building block instead of common organic molecules, and the merits of P-PCOP enable it to reduce the steric hindrance of recognition, enhance the interfacial contact of the target, and facilitate the accessibility of sites, which promises to improve the sensitivity. The P-PCOF exhibited a low detection limit of 0.38 μg L-1 to cartap over the range of 1-80 μg L-1 (R2 = 0.9845), and the recoveries percentage in real samples was estimated to be 93.39-105.82%. More importantly, the DFT calculation confirmed the selective recognition ability of P-PCOP on chemical pesticides. In conjunction with a smartphone-integrated portable reading device, on-site chemical sensing is achieved. The proper modulation strategy of fixing a functional guest on the COP system contributes to the advanced structure-chemical properties that are conducive to their applications in chemical sensing.