Enhancement anti-interference ability of photoelectrochemical sensor via differential molecularly imprinting technique demonstrated by dopamine determination

Abstract Molecularly imprinting polymers (MIPs), as artificial antibodies with high recognition selectivity to template molecules, are widely used in various biosensors. To improve further the selectivity of MIPs-based photoelectrochemical (PEC) biosensors, we report a differential strategy using non-imprinted polymers (NIPs) as the reference. In a proof-to-concept example for the determination of dopamine (DA), MIPs and NIPs membranes were fabricated by electrochemical polymerization of polypyrrole membranes on the surface of graphene quantum dots (GQDs)/TiO2 nanotubes (NTs). The photocurrent difference between the two PEC cells, MIPs@GQDs/TiO2 NTs−Pt and NIPs@GQDs/TiO2 NTs−Pt, was measured as the signal. As the non-specific adsorption of non-template molecules on the outside surface of MIPs and NIPs membranes is similar, the anti-interference ability for the determination of DA is much improved by using differential strategy. In the normal and differential PEC measurement models, 10.0 μM ascorbic acid is equivalent to 3.12 and 0.40 μM DA, respectively. Further, the smaller specific surface area in NIPs membrane was compensated by using a weight factor to correct the residual interference in a modified differential model. By using 10.0 μM ascorbic acid as the balance point, the presence of 10.0 μM H2O2, glutathione, uric acid or glucose is equivalent only to 0.090, 0.061,0.11 or 0.041 μM of DA, respectively, which are about 3∼7% of their interference levels in the normal photocurrent model. The differential PEC method was applied in the determination of DA in serum samples in the linear range of 0.05 to 12.5 μM, with the detection limit of 0.018 μM.