Recognition of vitamin K₁ with a molecularly imprinted self-assembled monolayer film

Abstract

In this paper, we present a novel way to design a self-assembled monolayer, based on molecular imprinting protocols, for the selective recognition of hydrophobic molecules.A monolayer of octadecanethiol, templated with n-hexadecane, was fabricated on a gold substrate, and its voltammetric behavior was examined with vitamin K₁ and K₃.The monolayer film showed a voltammetric response only to hydrophobic vitamin K₁ molecules, while a film without the hexadecane template showed neither a peak assigned to vitamin K₁ nor K₃.The results demonstrate that the present technique can be used as a simple and highly selective surface-designing tool for the fabrication of a self-assembled monolayer based electrode.