Recyclable molecularly imprinted polymers based on Fe3O4@SiO2 and PAMAM dendrimers for the determination of myosmine in cigarettes.

A selective method for the determination of myosmine (a tobacco alkaloid) was developed using molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) based on Fe3O4@SiO2 and PAMAM dendrimers. Fe3O4@SiO2 with excellent magnetism and rapid separation performance was chosen as carrier for the MIPs. Moreover, the MIPs modified with PAMAM dendrimers exhibited a regular structure and abundant functional groups, which improve the efficiency of imprinting sites. The myosmine concentration was measured by HPLC with PDA detector, and the UV detection wavelength was set to 200 nm. The linear range of this assay was 13.2-400 mg/L with a correlation coefficient of 0.999, and the detection limit was 4.0 mg/L (S/N = 3). The MIPs have been used for the determination of myosmine in cigarettes, and the recovery range was 84.2-93.5%, with RSD values in the range 0.41-3.1%. In conclusion, our MIPs combine advantages of simple preparation and remarkable selectivity, which gives them excellent application prospects for the sensitive determination of trace myosmine in tobacco products.

Oxygen-functionalized Fe3O4@o-polypyrrole acting as high-efficiency oxidase mimics and their application in glutathione colorimetric sensing.

The enzyme-like properties of nanozymes may be considerably affected by the structure and surface groups, which thus need to be optimized. Here, through a simple NaOH chemical corrosion method, the chemical structure similar to N-Methylpyrrolidone (NMP), which possessed intrinsic oxidase-like activity, was introduced into polypyrrole (PPy), and then this nanomaterial became oxygen-functionalized PPy (o-PPy) with excellent oxidase-like activity from PPy without this property. Furthermore, after compounding magnetic Fe3O4, the obtained nanocomposites Fe3O4@o-PPy nanoparticles (Fe3O4@o-PPy NPs) showed superiorities in separation during synthesis and real-time control of enzyme catalysis. Studies have found that the enzymatic activity of Fe3O4@o-PPy NPs depended on the amount of functionalized oxygen and the conjugation extent of o-PPy. Fe3O4@o-PPy NPs had efficient oxidase-like activity under a wide range of pH and temperature. Based on the oxidase-like activity of Fe3O4@o-PPy NPs, a colorimetric sensor for glutathione (GSH), which presented rich color changes and satisfactory colorimetric resolution by adding the amaranth, was realized. We believe that the functional modification and structural regulation of PPy can not only realize its wider application but also promote the discovery of novel and efficient nanozymes.