Multifunctional solid-state electrochemiluminescent chemosensors and aptasensor with free-standing active sites based on task-specific pyrene-terminated polymers via RAFT polymerization

Based on the flexible molecular engineering technique of reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization, various polymers carrying positive or negative charges and different terminal groups such as pyrene or tertiary amine were synthesized for fabricating multifunctional solid-state electrochemiluminescent (ECL) sensors. Accordingly, the chemosensors immobilizing the ECL probe or co-immobilizing the ECL probe and the coreactant were realized for the quantification of small molecules (e.g., tripropylamine , tetracycline), and an aptasensor was developed for the specific and sensitive lysozyme assay (limit of detection: 0.1 ng/mL). All of the sensors were realized via a simple design exploiting the π−π stacking and electrostatic interactions . It was confirmed that the proposed strategy is simple but universal for the fabrication of versatile ECL sensors that showed simplicity, cost-effectiveness, high sensitivity, long-term stability, and excellent reproducibility.