Synthesis and integration of sea urchin-like MnO2-GCN nanocomposite with imprinted polymers for mass-sensitive detection of chloramphenicol in water

Abstract

Overuse of antibiotics is associated with serious health concerns as common infections become harder to treat. This situation demands precise methods of antibiotic monitoring in complex mixtures. Chloramphenicol is a broad-spectrum antibiotic that was widely used to treat bacterial infections but because it is associated with serious side effects its use has been banned in many parts of the world. Detecting its presence in pharmaceuticals, food products, or biological samples is crucial for ensuring public health and safety. Being a broad-spectrum antibiotic it can also lead to the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. In this work, a novel mass-sensitive sensor is investigated to detect the presence of chloramphenicol in water samples. Sea urchin-like nanostructures of manganese dioxide and graphitic carbon nitride (MnO₂-GCN) were designed. The nanocomposite consists of globules of about 500–700 nm with spikes of about 25–50 nm, spread all over the surface. This material was coated on a quartz crystal microbalance and further it was topped by a chloramphenicol imprinted polymer. The change in the basic frequency of this resultant device is related to the attachment and removal of chloramphenicol in the prepared interface. This sensor yielded a detection limit of 11 μM. The designed sensor proved almost 98–99 % specific to recognizing chloramphenicol as compared to thiamphenicol, florfenicol, and clindamycin. The developed sensor was successfully applied to determine chloramphenicol in water. The present study harbours the advantages of inherent specificity of imprinting technique and its utilization for the selective and specific detection of antibiotics.