Organic-inorganic nanoparticles molecularly imprinted photoelectrochemical sensor for α-solanine based on p-type polymer dots and n-CdS heterojunction

Abstract In this study, a molecularly imprinted polymer photoelectrochemcal (MIP-PEC) sensor based on semiconducting organic polymer dots (Pdots) and inorganic CdS quantum dots (QDs) has been established for the determination of α-Solanine. Specifically, p-type Pdots (p-Pdots) and n-type CdS QDs (n-CdS) were utilized to form organic-inorganic nanoparticles p-n heterojunction to enhance signal response, and their specific energy levels (VB/CB or HOMO/LUMO) were calculated for photoelectrochemical (PEC) bioanalysis application. At the same time, the combination of molecular imprinting technology and photoelectrochemistry overcomes the defeats of photoelectrochemistry which is the absence of selectivity, offers a new MIP-PEC sensor with high sensitivity and excellent selectivity based heterojunction enhanced strategy. In short, this study proposes the semiconducting organic-inorganic nanoparticles p-n heterojunction for molecularly imprinted polymer photoelectrochemcal bioanalysis application, and the MIP-PEC sensor was successfully fabricated based on these materials and methods. In the phosphate buffer solution (PBS), it was clearly observed that the photocurrent has a significant change between elution in acetic acid-ethanol mixture and incubation in template molecular solution because of the faster electron transfer speed, this phenomenon fully showed that the MIP-PEC sensor can specifically detect the target. Thus, the work typically offers a linear range from 0.01 to 1000 ng mL −1 with a detection limit of 6.5 pg mL −1 for α-Solanine. Furthermore, the fabricated MIP-PEC sensor will confirm the actual application.