Abstract: An ultrathin molecularly imprinted polymer film was anchored on an Au surface for fabricating a surface plasmon resonance sensor sensitive to acephate by a surface-bound photo-radical initiator. The polymerization in the presence of acephate resulted in a molecular-imprinted matrix for the enhanced binding of acephate. Analysis of the SPR wavenumber changes in the presence of different concentrations of acephate gave a calibration curve that included the ultrasensitive detection of acephate by the imprinted sites in the composite, Kass for the association of acephate to the imprinted sites, 7.7 x 1012 M-1. The imprinted ultrathin film revealed impressive selectivity. The selectivity efficiencies for acephate and other structurally related analogues were 1.0 and 0.11-0.37, respectively. Based on a signal to noise ratio of 3, the detection limits were 1.14 x 10-13 M for apple sample and 4.29 x 10-14 M for cole sample. The method showed good recoveries and precision for the apple and cole samples spiked with acephate solution. This suggests that a combination of SPR sensing with MIP film is a promising alternative method for the detection of organophosphate compounds
Template and target information: acephate
Author keywords: molecular imprinting, Surface initiated radical polymerization, surface plasmon resonance sensor, recovery