Sensing 2,4,6-tribromophenol based on molecularly imprinted technology

Abstract 2,4,6-Tribromophenol has been used as flame retardant and is a synthetic intermediate of the most important brominated flame retardants produced. In this work, a novel electrochemical sensor for determining 2,4,6-tribromophenol was fabricated by surface molecular imprinting technology, in which core–shell nanoparticles modified with (3-chloropropyl)trimethoxysilan and polyethylenimine were used as functional monomer, and 2,4,6-tribromophenol as template, ethylene glycol dimethacrylate as cross-linker. The electrochemical behavior the modified electrodes was investigated by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and differential pulse voltammetry. The results showed that the imprinted electrode was significantly different from the non-imprinted electrode. The imprinted electrode had ascendant selective recognition ability, exhibited a low detection limit (1.51 × 10 −8 mol/dm 3 ) and good repeatability (RSD is 4.35 % for 5 times) for the detection of 2,4,6-tribromophenol. Graphical abstract