Screen-printed carbon electrode (SPCE) modified by molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) nanoparticles and graphene nanosheets for determination of sertraline antidepressant drug

In this paper, a novel molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) electrochemical sensor for selective detection of an antidepressant drug, sertraline (STR) has been developed. The precipitation polymerization method in the presence of sertraline hydrochloride as template molecules was used for synthesize of MIP nanoparticles. The sensor was developed by embedding a very thin layer of the MIP/graphene suspension on the handmade screenprinted carbon electrodes (SPCEs). The K-3 [Fe(CN)(6)]/K-4[Fe(CN)(6)] redox couple was used as a probe to characterize the sensor by using cyclic voltammetry & differential pulse voltammetry methods. The sertraline binding experiments indicated that the MIP/graphene modified SPCEs have higher adsorption ability than the nonimprinted polymer(NIP)/graphene modified SPCEs. Factors affecting the sensor response such as composition of MIP/graphene suspension, extraction pH, preconcentration time and stirring rate of sample solution were optimized. Under optimal conditions, the sensor exhibited good sensitivity (177.25 mu A L mu mol(-1)) for sertraline with a linear range of 5.0 x 10(-9) to 7.5 x 10(-7) M (R-2 = 0.9971) and detection limit of 1.99 x 10(-9) M. The sensor was successfully applied for the determination of sertraline in tablet and human serum samples with recovery values in the range of 97.98-101.33%.