Electrochemical Detection of Epicatechin in Green Tea Using Quercetin-Imprinted Polymer Graphite Electrode

The current study utilizes molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) technology to fabricate a cost-effective and reproducible electrode for selective determination and quantitative prediction of epicatechin (EC) in green tea. Acrylamide (AAm) co-polymerized with ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA) and optically inactive quercetin (Q) as the template has been used to make the MIP-Q@G material. The voltammetric experiment has been performed using the MIP-Q@G electrode with the help of a three-electrode configuration. In addition to a low detection limit (LoD) of 0.33 mu M , the electrode exhibited two wide ranges of linearity from 1 mu M - 100 mu M and 100 mu M to 500 mu M . The limit of quantitation (LoQ) of the electrode was found to be 1.09 mu M . Partial least square regression (PLSR) and principal component regression (PCR) models have been developed to investigate the predictive ability of the MIP-Q@G electrode using the differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) signals and the high- performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) data. Both PLSR and PCR models achieved prediction accuracies of 94.54 % and 94.41% with a root mean square error of calibration (RMSEC) of 0.113 and 0.119, respectively.

Automated summary

The study developed a cost-effective and reproducible electrode using MIP technology for selective determination and quantitative prediction of epicatechin in green tea. The electrode showed low detection limit, wide linearity ranges, and accurate predictive ability using PLSR and PCR models.