Enhanced anesthetic propofol biochips by modifying molecularly imprinted nanocavities of biosensors

This paper presents enhanced performance of anesthetic propofol biosensors by modifying molecularly imprinted nanocavities of biosensors. In this work, the relationship between molecularly imprinted nanocavities and performance of molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) films is investigated. The morphological control of imprinted nanocavities on molecularly imprinted biosensors is done by adjusting polymer composition and polymerization process. The newly developed MIP biosensors are characterized using our developed microfluidic biochips and optical microsystems. Experimental results show that the sizes of molecularly imprinted nanocavities were reduced to 10 to 14 nm from 10 to 25 nm. The roughness of the MIP film surface was reduced to 2.5 nm from 6.6 nm. Smaller imprinted nanocavities have better molecular separation performance. The specificity and linearity of the anesthetic biosensors could be enhanced by adjusting morphology of imprinted nanocavities. The linearity and the sensitivity of the microfluidic biochip with an improved on-chip MIP biosensor have been enhanced from 0.9341 to 49.5 mV/mm².ml/μg, respectively, to 0.9782 and 176.9 mV/mm².ml/μg. The anesthetic propofol biosensor presented in this study is applicable to numerous fluidic-based disposable biochips.