A novel ionic liquid stabilized molecularly imprinted optosensing material based on quantum dots and graphene oxide for specific recognition of vitamin E

•We prepared molecularly imprinted polymer based on quantum dots and graphene oxide.•Graphene oxide was first introduced to the molecularly imprinted polymer.•The ionic liquid was used to improve fluorescence stability.•The prepared optosensing material was specific recognition of vitamin E.

This work prepared a novel ionic liquid stabilized molecularly imprinted optosensing material based on quantum dots (QDs) and graphene oxide (GO) composites using a one-step polymerization for highly selective and sensitive specific recognition of vitamin E (VE). Here, GO was first introduced to the molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) because of its ultra-high specific surface area which increases the rate of mass-transfer relative to that of traditional bulk MIP. The ionic liquid was used to provide the desired surface binding groups between the QDs and the GO, but also to improve their fluorescence stability by virtue of its high thermal and chemical stability. Under optimal conditions, the relative fluorescence intensity of MIP decreased linearly with the increasing concentration of VE in the range of 2.30×10−2–9.20×102 μM with a detection limit of 3.5 nM and the precision for five replicate detections of 92 μM VE was 1.67% (relative standard deviation). At three concentration levels, the recoveries for two samples achieved were 93.00–100.14% and 92.00–102.00%, respectively.