Molecularly imprinted polymer-based fluorescent sensors for rapid and specific detection of target pesticides

This study presents a novel fluorescence sensing platform based on molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) for the detection of imidacloprid and chlorpyrifos, two widely used pesticides with potential food safety risks. The fluorescent MIPs (FMIPs) were synthesized via a sol-gel polymerization method using 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES) as the functional monomer, and fluorescein isocyanate coupled APTES as the fluorescent functional monomer. The resulting FMIPs exhibited high specificity and strong fluorescence quenching responses upon binding to the target pesticides. Under optimized conditions, the corresponding FMIP sensors displayed a linear detection range of 0.02-2 µM for imidacloprid and 0.04-10 µM for chlorpyrifos, with detection limits of 0.012 µM and 0.037 µM, respectively. In addition, the FMIP sensors could realize the specific recognition of the target pesticides within 10 minutes. Validation using water samples achieved spiked recoveries of 75.6-106.5% with relative standard deviations below 9.3%, confirming its practicality for application in real samples.