Stabilized, Superparamagnetic Functionalized Graphene/Fe3O4@Au Nanocomposites for a Magnetically-Controlled Solid-State Electrochemiluminescence Biosensing Application

Herein, a multifunctional nanoarchitecture has been developed by integrating the branched poly(ethylenimine) functionalized graphene/iron oxide hybrids (BGNs/Fe3O4) and luminol capped gold nanoparticles (luminol-AuNPs). The luminescent luminol-AuNPs as an electrochemiluminescence marker can be assembled on the nanocarrier of BGNs/Fe3O4 hybrids efficiently via the Au-N chemical bonds and electrostatic adsorption. Meanwhile, the multifunctional nanoarchitecture has been proved with excellent electron transfer, good stability, high emission intensity, etc. Furthermore, we successfully developed an ultrasensitive magnetically-controlled solid-state electrochemiluminescence (ECL) platform for label-free determination of HeLa cells using this multifunctional nanocomposite. Excellent performance of the magnetically-controlled ECL biosensing platform has been achieved including a high sensitivity for HeLa cells with a linear range from 20 to 1 x 10 (4) cells/mL, good stability, and reproducibility.