Molecularly imprinted polymeric coatings for sensitive and selective gravimetric detection of artemether

Usman Arshad; Adnan Mujahid; Peter Lieberzeit; Adeel Afzal; Sadia Zafar Bajwa; Naseer Iqbal; Sumaira Roshan

doi:10.1039/d0ra04785f

Molecularly imprinted polymeric coatings for sensitive and selective gravimetric detection of artemether

RSC Adv. 2020 Sep 16;10(57):34355-34363. doi: 10.1039/d0ra04785f.

Authors

Usman Arshad¹, Adnan Mujahid¹, Peter Lieberzeit², Adeel Afzal³, Sadia Zafar Bajwa⁴, Naseer Iqbal³, Sumaira Roshan¹

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Chemistry, University of the Punjab Lahore-54590 Pakistan adnanmujahid.chem@pu.edu.pk.
² Department of Physical Chemistry, University of Vienna Waehringer Strasse 42 Vienna A-1090 Austria.
³ Department of Chemistry, College of Science, University of Hafr Al Batin PO Box 1803 Hafr Al Batin 39524 Saudi Arabia aa@aafzal.com.
⁴ National Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering Jhang Road Faisalabad Pakistan.

Abstract

Monitoring antimalarial drugs is necessary for clinical assays, human health, and routine quality control practices in pharmaceutical industries. Herein, we present the development of sensor coatings based on molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) combined with quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) for sensitive and selective gravimetric detection of an antimalarial drug: artemether. The MIP coatings are synthesized by using artemether as the template in a poly(methacrylic acid-co-ethylene glycol dimethacrylate) matrix. Artemether-MIP and the non-imprinted polymer (NIP) control or reference layers are deposited on 10 MHz dual-electrode QCM by spin coating (187 ± 9 nm layer thickness after optimization). The coatings are characterized by FTIR spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy that reveal marked differences among the MIP and NIP. The MIP-QCM sensor exhibits high sensitivity (0.51 Hz ppm^-1) with sub-10 ppm detection and quantification limits. The MIP-QCM sensor also exhibits a 6-fold higher sensitivity compared to the NIP-QCM, and a dynamic working range of 30-100 ppm. The response time of MIP-QCM devices for a single cycle of analyte adsorption, signal saturation, and MIP regeneration is less than 2.5 min. The sensor also demonstrates selectivity factors of artemether-MIP of 2.2 and 4.1 compared to artemisinin and lumefantrine, respectively. Reversibility tests reveal less than 5% variation in sensor responses over three cycles of measurements at each tested concentration. The MIP-QCM showed lower detection limits than conventional HPLC-UV, and faster response time compared to HPLC-UV and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS).