Highly selective molecular recognition and high throughput detection of melamine based on molecularly imprinted sol–gel film

Multimode reader has been generally applied in immunoassay, and in the proposed paper, the 96 well micro-plate was modified with molecularly imprinted melamine sol–gel film, based on which the highly selective and high throughput detection of melamine was achieved. Melamine was imprinted into silica sol–gel films directly using phenyltrimethoxysilane and methyltrimethoxysilane as functionalized organosilicon precursors. The binding characteristic of the imprinted film to melamine was evaluated by equilibrium binding experiments and the morphology was studied by scanning electronic microscope (SEM). Scatchard analysis was carried out to estimate the binding parameters of the imprinted film. The proposed method exhibited excellent selectivity because of specific recognition of MM by molecularly imprinted film. Under the optimum conditions, the chemiluminescence (CL) intensity had a linear relationship against the concentration of melamine over the range of 0.1–50 μg mL−1 with a lower detection limit of 0.02 μg mL−1.