Preparation of ractopamine-tetraphenylborate complexed nanoparticles used as sensors to rapidly determine ractopamine residues in pork.

Jing Zhang,Xintian Shao,Jingli Yue,Donghui Li,Zhenhua Chen

doi:10.1186/1556-276x-9-639

Abstract

In this work, we reported a simple, fast, and sensitive determination of ractopamine (RAC) residues in pork by using novel ractopamine-tetraphenylborate complexed nanoparticles (RT NPs) as sensors. The prepared RT NPs exhibited a fast response time of 10 s, a wide linear range from 0.1 to 1.0 × 10−7 mol/L, and a very low detection limit of 7.4 × 10−8 mol/L. The prepared sensor also presents a high selectivity for ractopamine under different pH conditions ranged from 2.85 to 7.18. These results reveal that the fabricated RT NPs can be used as efficient electrochemical sensors to determine ractopamine in animal productions.

Highlights

Ractopamine (RAC) is a β-agonist and belongs to the phenyl ethanolamine group
This was further demonstrated by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) image and dynamic light scattering (DLS) size distribution shown in Figure 2b, and these results confirmed that the size of the prepared ractopamine-tetraphenylborate complexed nanoparticles (RT NPs) mainly distributed in the range of 40 to 50 nm
The surface of the carbon paste electrode modified with RT NPs was shown in Figure 2c, and it was obvious that the RT NPs were uniformly scattered on the surface of the electrode

Summary

Introduction

Ractopamine (RAC) is a β-agonist and belongs to the phenyl ethanolamine group. Adding RAC to the fodder can reduce the fat deposition and increase the muscle in animals. RAC residues in the liver, lung, and other organs will cause a series of health problems for consumers, such as muscular tremors, tachycardia, cardiac palpitation, dizziness, and even death [1]. Because of these potential risks to consumers, RAC is not licensed for animal production in many countries. The overcoming of time-consuming procedures, expensive instrument, complex treatment steps, and the needs of skilled operators are still challenges for convenient and rapid determining of RAC

Methods

Results

Conclusion