A novel ratiometric electrochemical sensor for the selective detection of citrinin based on molecularly imprinted poly(thionine) on ionic liquid decorated boron and nitrogen co-doped hierarchical porous carbon

Citrinin can cause serious human diseases, thus its detection in foods is necessary. Herein, a molecularly imprinted polymer-based ratiometric electrochemical sensor (MIP-RECS) was presented for citrinin detection. The sensor was fabricated by electropolymerization, using thionine as monomer and citrinin as template. The ionic liquid decorated boron and nitrogen co-doped hierarchical porous carbon (BN-HPC) as supporter, provided large surface for anchoring thionine and citrinin. Poly(thionine) not only acted as MIP, but also acted as reference probe. When [Fe(CN)6] 3-/4- was adopted as indicating probe, the resulting sensor demonstrated a wide linear detection range (i.e. 1 × 10-3–10 ng mL−1) and a low detection limit (i.e. 1 × 10-4 ng mL−1).The sensor was applied to the detection of spiked citrinin in real samples, and satisfactory recovery (i.e. 97% – 110%) was obtained. Hence, it was promising for citrinin detection.