Enhanced electrochemiluminescence aptasensor using ZnO as the co-reaction accelerator of Mn-NHCDs/TEA system for the detection of florfenicol

A novel ternary electrochemiluminescence (ECL) aptasensor was creatively proposed for florfenicol (FF) detection, on account of the manganese-nitrogen dual-doped carbon dots (Mn-NHCDs) emitter and the facilitation of triethylamine (TEA) by zinc oxide (ZnO). First, Mn-NHCDs with low excitation potentials and excellent electrochemical luminescence properties were synthesized. Then, a newly formulated ZnO with an enlarged specific surface area and an appropriate mesoporous structure was utilized to load Mn-NHCDs, thereby diminishing the leakage of Mn-NHCDs and stabilizing the luminescence within the system. More importantly, ZnO can serve as a new co-reaction accelerator for TEA to improve the reaction rate of Mn-NHCDs with TEA efficiently. Furthermore, owing to the overlap of spectra, we employed an ECL resonance energy transfer (ECL-RET) strategy, with the Mn-NHCDs/ZnO as the donor and black hole quencher (BHQ) as the acceptor. The ECL biosensor illustrates an extremely selective and sensitive determination of FF from 1.00 fg mL⁻¹ to 10.0 ng mL⁻¹ and a detection Limit of 0.413 fg mL⁻¹. We envision that our aptasensor will provide substantial assurance concerning food safety.

Graphical Abstract