Electrochemical detection of tetracycline by zinc oxide modified with molecularly-imprinted polymers†

An efficient electrochemical molecularly imprinted sensor for the detection of tetracycline (TC) was prepared using ZnO/MIP. ZnO nanomaterials with large surface area improved the electrochemical detection performance and also increased the binding sites of the TC molecularly imprinted polymeric membrane. The TC molecularly imprinted polymeric membrane with pyrrole as the functional monomer specifically binds to TC and thus detects TC in the sample. In this study, the electrochemical performance of ZnO/MIP was evaluated by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and differential pulse voltammetry (DPV). Under the optimal conditions, ZnO/MIP showed a wide detection range. The detection range was 0.1–100 nM, and the detection limit was 0.02 nM with R² reaching 0.9974. ZnO/MIP has good selectivity, stability, and reproducibility. The recovery of tetracycline in milk was 97–112%.