Two different molecularly imprinted polymeric coating techniques for creating sensitive and selective electrochemical sensors for the detection of Ribavirin

Herein, we successfully designed two separate imprinting strategies for the selective and sensitive detection of ribavirin (RIB) based on electropolymerization (EP) with para-aminophenyl boronic acid (p-APBA) functional monomer and photopolymerization (PP) with uracil methacrylate (UraM) functional monomers. For this purpose, firstly, poly(Py-co-p-APBA)]/RIB@MIP/GCE was successfully synthesized by co-polymerization of p-APBA monomer with pyrrole (Py) in the presence of RIB on a glassy carbon electrode (GCE) surface via EP process. Secondly, the PP based UraM/RIB@MIP sensor was fabricated by the co-polymerization of UraM and 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) using polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) as a sacrificial agent. The modifications of electrode surface are assessed at the molecular and electronic levels by quantum chemical calculations. Under optimum experimental conditions, the dynamic linear range of the developed sensors was found as 1.0 × 10−11-5.0 × 10−10 M and 1.0 × 10−12-2.5 × 10−11 M for EP and PP, respectively. The developed electrochemical sensors shows satisfactory recovery for the determination RIB in capsule form and commercial serum samples as 99.55–101.18% and 99.17% and 101.09% for poly(Py-co-p-APBA)/RIB@MIP/GCE and UraM/RIB@MIP/GCE sensors, respectively.