A mesoporous fluorescent sensor based on ZnO nanorods for the fluorescent detection and selective recognition of tetracycline

Due to tetracycline (TC) being harmful to the environment and animals, versatile fluorescent sensors have been developed and applied for the specific recognition and determination of TC. In the present paper, a mesoporous fluorescent sensor was successfully prepared by using TC as the template, cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) as the porogen, and ZnO nanorods (NRs) as the core substrate material and optical material. The synthesized composite materials were characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). Fluorescent measurements of the target TC were then measured by a spectrofluorometer. Under optimal conditions, the linear range and correlation coefficient of the mesoporous MIPs-ZnO NRs were 2.0–120 μmol L−1 and 0.9993, respectively, and the imprinting factor (IF) was up to 3.50. Moreover, in order to further investigate the effect of the mesoporous structure, a fluorescent sensor without a mesoporous structure was synthesized as a comparison and measured by the same processes. Through analysis of the data, it was found that the mesoporous fluorescent sensor showed a lower response time, higher utilization, and higher selective recognition and sensitive determination than the non-mesoporous fluorescent sensor. This study provides a novel strategy to fabricate mesoporous-imprinted polymer layer-coated ZnO NRs with excellent fluorescent performance for TC.