ZnO nanotubes supported molecularly imprinted polymers arrays as sensing materials for electrochemical detection of dopamine

Nanostructured molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) offer opportunities for developing chemical sensors with high sensitivity, excellent selectivity and fast response. In this work, ZnO nanotubes (ZNTs) supported MIPs arrays were fabricated and used as sensing materials for highly sensitive dopamine electrochemical detection. ZNTs with appropriate inner and outer diameter make it is possible to make full use of their surface area for MIPs preparation with high specific surface area. MIPs are capable of selective recognition target molecules, while ZNTs are helpful for signal collecting by providing electron transfer pathways. Due to the imprinted cavities (imprinted sites) are always located at inner and outer surface of ZNTs, these ZNTs supported MIPs (ZNTs-MIPs) arrays have good accessibility towards target. In addition, each of these MIPs arrays also can be used as sensing unit for efficient signal yielding and/or collecting. As a result, the proposed ZNTs-MIPs arrays based electrochemical sensor possesses high sensitivity, excellent selectivity and fast response towards dopamine.141