A novel amperometric nitric oxide sensor based on imprinted microenvironments for controlling metal coordination

A novel amperometric nitric oxide (NO) sensor was prepared by modifying an imprinted functional polymer P-l[CoII (salen)] (salen: bis(2-hydroxy-benzaldehyde)ethylenediimine) on the surface of a glassy carbon electrode (GCE) in the presence of multi-wall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) and chitosan (CS). Here P-l[CoII(salen)] functionalized as an artificial recognition receptor for NO instead of a traditional molecularly imprinted polymer in which the template molecule was usually adopted to generate specific binding sites for itself. The analytical performances of the NO sensor were evaluated by differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) and amperometric measurements (i–t). The experimental results indicate that the developed sensor exhibits an outstanding anti-interference ability and has linear relationship with NO concentration in the range of 7.2 × 10−9–9.0 × 10−5 M with the detection limit of 2.99 × 10−9 M (S/N = 3). Finally, the sensor was successfully applied to the detection of NO release from peach fruits.