Theoretically optimized molecularly imprinted gel-encapsulated sea urchin-shaped bionic enzyme serves as a green artificial antibody for the selective recognition of vanillin in desserts

The increasing abuse of various food additives has promoted concerns about food safety, necessitating accurate monitoring of their contents to ensure the standardized production of desserts. To address this issue, a molecularly imprinted gel (MIG) has been developed as an artificial antibody using the optimization of computational chemistry for the selective recognition of vanillin in desserts through an electrochemical strategy. Specifically, the food additive of vanillin is used as the template to connect with the optimal functional monomer methyl acrylamide and then MIG is obtained by the surface polymerization which is anchored on the surface of sea urchin-shaped biomimetic enzyme Co2NiO4 @PtCu. This hydrophilic MIG has an unprecedented ability to selectively recognize vanillin in virtue of the optimization of density functional theory. The as-prepared Co2NiO4 @PtCu-MIG serves as an artificial antibody and can be used to construct an electrochemical sensor for the selective detecting vanillin with a wide linear detection range of 50 nM to 500 μM and a low limit of detection of 3.45 nM. More importantly, this MIG-type artificial antibody could effectively monitor food safety by selectively recognizing vanillin in six desserts including wafers, biscuits, chocolate, puffs, and ice cream.