Molecularly Imprinted Polymer Nanomaterials for Mycotoxin Extraction

Abstract

A new electrochemical imprinting technique, in which pyrrole is used as a functional monomer, has great potential to glue nanomaterials together. The molecularly imprinted polypyrrole (MIPPy), using ochratoxin A (OTA) as the template molecule, is electrochemically deposited onto carbon nanotubes (CNTs) or quantum dots (QDs) to make a solid phase of nanoscale for specific extraction of the mycotoxin. This MIPPy nanomaterial is simply structured within the 0.5-μm pores of a stainless steel frit, or inside a syringe needle, to make a novel micro solid phase extraction (µSPE) device. With the nanostructure of CNTs or QDs, the total number of specific binding sites of MIPPy-on-a-frit or MIPPy-in-aneedle is significantly enhanced for binding of OTA at subppb levels even in the presence of abundant red wine matrix components. Molecularly Imprinted PolymersOver the last decade, molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) have gained more acceptance regarding their application as synthetic receptors for analytical techniques such as liquid chromatography, capillary electrochromatography, solid phase extraction, immunoassay, and chemical sensors (1). MIPs are solid materials that can be synthesized in the presence of a target compound (the template molecule) through polymerization. After removal of template, specific Downloaded by UCSF LIB CKM RSCS MGMT on November 18, 2014 |