Development and application of molecularly imprinted quartz crystal microbalance sensor for rapid detection of metolcarb in foods

- A MIP-QCM sensor was developed for rapid detection of metolcarb.
- The MIP showed good selective affinity towards the target molecule.
- The MIP-QCM sensor exhibited high selectivity towards metolcarb.
- This work provided a promising method for metolcarb analysis in food matrix.

A strategy for rapid detection of metolcarb was reported based on molecularly imprinted quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) sensor. The molecularly imprinted ploymer (MIP) was prepared and used as the molecular recognition element of the QCM sensor. The adsorption properties of the prepared MIP were evaluated by static and dynamic adsorption test and Scatchard analysis, demonstrating high affinity and homogeneous imprinting sites towards metolcarb. Through a series of evaluation experiments, the proposed MIP-QCM sensor displayed a linear relationship between frequency shift and the concentration of metolcarb ranging from 5 μg L−1 to 70 μg L−1 with a low detection limit of 2.309 μg L−1 (S/N = 3). The proposed sensor exhibited high selectivity towards target metolcarb compared with its structural analogs, and was applied to different food samples with satisfactory recoveries (85.4-95.5%). The above results were in accordance with those obtained by high-performance liquid chromatography, indicating that the prepared MIP-QCM sensor has high accuracy and precision for metolcarb analysis in food matrix.