Macroporous graphene capped Fe3O4 for amplified electrochemiluminescence immunosensing of carcinoembryonic antigen detection based on CeO2@TiO2

A novel electrochemiluminescence (ECL) signal-amplified immunosensing strategy was proposed by using gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) functionalized reduced graphene oxide (rGO) capped Fe3O4 (Au-FrGO). In this work, CeO2@TiO2 was prepared by a sol-gel method to wrap CeO2 with TiO2. In the presence of CeO2, CeO2@TiO2 exhibited better ECL activity than TiO2 with peroxydisulfate as coreactant. In addition, FrGO with macroporous structure was synthesized by self-assembly of rGO sheets capped cationic Fe3O4 nanoparticles, exhibiting larger specific surface area than rGO. Due to the low toxicity and magnetism of Fe3O4, FrGO owned more favorable biocompatibility and the application of magnetic-separation simplified the preparation procedure. After hybridizing with Au NPs, FrGO exhibited more excellent electrical conductivity and could immobilize more CeO2@TiO2 and antibodies. Therefore, a novel label-free ECL immunosensor based on Au-FrGO-CeO2@TiO2 was constructed which generated higher ECL response. To investigate the performance of the immunosensor, carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) was chosen as a model target analyte. Under optimal conditions, the immunosensor had sensitive response to CEA in a wide linear range of 0.01 pg mL(-1) to 10 ng mL(-1) with a detection limit of 3.28 fg mL(-1). The proposed ECL immunosensor exhibited excellent stability, repeatability and selectivity, which opened another promising avenue for CEA determination in real serum samples.