Molecularly imprinted optosensing material based on hydrophobic CdSe quantum dots via a reverse microemulsion for specific recognition of ractopamine

• A novel molecularly imprinted optosensing material based on hydrophobic CdSe quantum dots (QDs) was synthesized.
• Hydrophobic CdSe QDs were first introduced to the hydrophilic analyte imprinted polymer.
• A one-pot room-temperature reverse microemulsion polymerization was used to synthesize the molecularly imprinted optosensing material.
• The molecularly imprinted polymer based on hydrophobic CdSe QDs applied as a molecular recognition element to construct ractopamine optosensor.

A novel molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) based on hydrophobic CdSe quantum dots (QDs) was synthesized using a one-pot room-temperature reverse microemulsion polymerization, and this polymer was applied as a molecular recognition element to construct a ractopamine (RAC) optosensor. Here, hydrophobic CdSe QDs were first introduced to the hydrophilic analyte-imprinted polymer for highly selective and sensitive detection of RAC via the change in fluorescence intensity, because of the high-quality hydrophobic QDs with high quantum yield, sharp photoluminescence spectra and chemical and fluorescent stability. Under optimal conditions, the relative fluorescence intensity of MIP based on hydrophobic QDs decreased linearly with the increasing concentration of RAC in the range of 1.21×10−9–3.03×10−6 mol L−1 with a detection limit of 7.57×10−10 mol L−1, and the precision for five replicate detections of 1.51×10−8 mol L−1 RAC was 2.09% (relative standard deviation). The proposed method was successfully applied for the determination of trace RAC in pork samples, with good recoveries ranging from 82.79% to 97.23%.

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