Sensitive and selective detection of amitrole based on molecularly imprinted nanosensor

Herein, a surface plasmon resonance (SPR)-based nanosensor was fabricated usingmolecular imprinting technique for the selective and sensitive detection of amitrole, acommonly used highly toxic pesticide. For this purpose, polymeric nanofilms involvingN-methacryloyl-L-tryptophan methyl ester and ethylene glycol dimethacrylate whichare functional monomer and cross-linker, respectively, were prepared on the SPR chipssurface via the ultravoilet polymerization method. The nanofilms were characterized byseveral techniques such as ellipsometry, Fourier transform infrared-attenuated totalreflection, atomic force microscope and contact angle measurements. The kinetic ana-lyses for amitrole detection were examined through amitrole-imprinted and non-imprinted SPR sensor chips. The developed imprinted sensor showed high selectivity tothe amitrole molecule than similar molecules and a good linear relationship for the0.06-11.90 nM concentration range with a low limit of detection value of 0.037 nM.The high imprinting efficiency (I.F: 62.38) of the amitrole-imprinted SPR sensor wasdetermined by comparing it with the non-imprinted SPR sensor. The most suitablemodel of this sensor is the Langmuir adsorption model. To statistically assess the reus-ability of the sensor, intraday experiments were tested three times with five replicates.The relative standard deviation% value less than <1.5 indicates high reproducibility forboth sensor production and reproducibility of the method. The prepared sensor wasalso applied efficiently for the selective detection of the amitrole in spiked samples pre-pared from vegetables to evaluate the matrix effect. As a result, amitrole-imprinted SPRsensors have been estimated to be highly selective, fast responsive, easy to use, reus-able and sensitive in detecting amitrole in both natural source and aqueous solutions.Label-free amitrole detection was performed by an aminoacid-based SPR sensor fabri-cated without the need for complex coupling processes.