Titanium dioxide and polypyrrole molecularly imprinted polymer nanocomposites based electrochemical sensor for highly selective detection of p-nonylphenol

We developed a new electrochemical sensor based on TiO2 and polypyrrole (PPy) molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) nanocomposites for the high selective detection of p-nonylphenol in food samples, which is considered as a kind of endocrine disrupting chemical and harmful to human health. With p-nonylphenol as template molecules, the molecularly imprinted polymer was synthesized by the chemical oxidative polymerization of pyrrole and deposited on the surface of TiO2 nanoparticles to form partially encapsulated PPy@TiO2 nanocomposites, denoted as NP-PPy@TiO2 MIP. p-Nonylphenol was bound in the PPy matrix through hydrogen bond and π-π interaction between p-nonylphenol and PPy skeleton. NP-PPy@TiO2 MIP nanocomposites were modified onto glassy carbon electrode (GCE) and p-nonylphenol molecules were excluded from PPy layers by potentiostatic sweeping at the potential of 1.3 V. The as-prepared electrochemical sensor obtained a large amount of micro cavities in PPy layer which could specially recognize and combine target molecules p-nonylphenol. After special adsorption of p-nonylphenol from samples, p-nonylphenol embedded in the PPy layer exhibited a strong differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) response at 0.56 V, which can be used for the detection of p-nonylphenol with a linearly proportional concentration range of 1.0 × 10−8 to 8 × 10−5 mol/L and a detection limit of 3.91 × 10−9 mol/L. The good stability, reproducibility and specificity of the resulting MIP electrochemical sensor are demonstrated. It might open a new window for investigation of selectively electrochemical sensing of small organic molecules from their analogues with the molecular imprinting technique. [Display omitted] •The electrochemical sensor was constructed by composition of TiO2 and PPy MIP.•PPy MIP showed specific recognition and strong absorption to p-nonylphenol.•The electrochemical sensor exhibited high selectivity and sensitivity for the detection of p-nonylphenol.