Multi-compartmental Ni-MOF@C microcapsules for enhanced electrochemical detection of paracetamol and levofloxacin

Paracetamol (PA) and levofloxacin (LEV) are frequently co-administered in clinical settings for the management of bacterial infections accompanied by pain and fever. Accurate and simultaneous quantification of these two drugs is essential for pharmaceutical analysis and therapeutic drug monitoring, as their concentrations directly influence therapeutic outcomes and safety. Therefore, developing a rapid, sensitive, and reliable method for the simultaneous determination of PA and LEV is of great significance for pharmaceutical analysis.

In this work, we developed an electrochemical sensor based on structurally engineered multi-compartmental Ni-MOF@C microcapsules. Using a Pickering double emulsion method, we constructed a hierarchical hollow MOF architecture, incorporating conductive carbon nanoparticles into its shell to enhance electron transfer. The unique structure provides a large electroactive surface area with abundant catalytic sites, while the carbon network ensures high conductivity, overcoming the intrinsic limitation of pristine MOFs. The sensor exhibited wide linear ranges of 2 to 6500 μM for PA and 2 to 6000 μM for LEV, good sensitivities of 277.1 μA mM^-1 cm^-2 for PA and 245.2 μA mM^-1 cm^-2 for LEV, and detection limits of 1.86 μM for PA and 2.10 μM for LEV, along with favorable selectivity, stability, and reproducibility.

The proposed electrochemical sensor based on Ni-MOF@C microcapsules has achieved successful simultaneous detection of PA and LEV in human serum samples. Additionally, this study offers new inspiration regarding the application of structurally engineered MOF-based electrochemical sensors in pharmaceutical analysis and quality control fields, holding great practical significance.