Upconversion Nanophosphor-Involved Molecularly Imprinted Fluorescent Polymers for Sensitive and Specific Recognition of Sterigmatocystin

Originated from the bottom-up synthetic strategy, molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) possess the inherent ability of selective and specific recognition and binding of the target analytes, with their structural cavities that can match the target molecules in respect to size, shape, and functional groups. Herein, based on the high selectivity of MIPs and the fluorescence properties of the β-NaYF(4):Yb(3+), Er(3+) upconversion nanoparticles, MIPs with both specificity and fluorescent signals are fabricated to recognize trace sterigmatocystin (ST) with high selectivity and sensitivity. The structure analogue of ST, 1,8-dihydroxyanthraquinone (DT), was employed as the template molecule, acrylamide as the functional monomer, 3-methacryloyloxypropyltrimethoxysilane as the crosslinking agent, and a new molecular imprinting technique of non-aqueous sol-gel method is used to synthesize a molecularly imprinted material with high selectivity to ST. Under optimal conditions, the fluorescence enhancement of fluorescent MIPs increased as the concentration of ST increased. In the range of 0.05–1.0 mg L(−1), fluorescence enhancement and the concentration showed a good linear relationship with a detection limit of 0.013 mg L(−1). Real sample analysis achieved the recoveries of 83.8–88.8% (RSD 5.1%) for rice, 82.1–87.5% (RSD 4.6%) for maize, and 80.6–89.2% (RSD 3.0%) for soybeans, respectively, revealing the feasibility of the developed method.