Rapid determination of atrazine, a widely used herbicide, in foods is challenging. To solve this problem, we developed a dual biosensor integrating molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) with gold nanoparticles (AuNPs)-based colorimetric assay and surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS).<br/>MIPs were synthesized using atrazine as template, methacrylic acid as functional monomer, ethylene glycol dimethacrylate as cross-linker, and 2,2’-azobisisobutyronitrile as initiator by bulk polymerization. MIPs could selectively separate atrazine from foods. Due to the interactions between AuNPs and atrazine, colorimetric assay could rapidly screen atrazine for qualitative analysis.<br/>SERS was employed for further quantitative analysis by using the same AuNPs. Raman signals of foods with different atrazine concentrations were differentiated by chemometrics. Three different sizes (20, 35, and 50 nm) of AuNPs were synthesized and compared. AuNPs with 50 nm worked best for colorimetric assay while 35-nm AuNPs were most suitable to SERS. Both limit of detection and limit of quantification of atrazine was 5 ppb, validating the feasibility of this dual biosensor to determine atrazine in foods.

Molecularly imprinted polymers based colorimetric-sers dual biosensor for the detection of atrazine in foods

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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