Molecularly imprinted polymer coupled with zinc-doped carbon quantum dots as a fluorescent probe for the determination of doxorubicin hydrochloride

As an effective chemotherapy drug, doxorubicin hydrochloride (DOX) plays an important role in treating cancer. However, its serious side effects and chemoresistance limit its wide use. Therefore, the accurate determination of doxorubicin is particularly important for controlled dosage. In this work, blue fluorescent carbon quantum dots (HCQDs) doped with Zn were synthesized by hydrothermal method using hair as the carbon source. Then, a fluorescent molecularly imprinted polymer (HCQDs@MIP) for the determination of DOX was synthesized by sol–gel method with HCQDs, APTES, TEOS and DOX as the fluorescence source, functional monomer, crosslinker and template, respectively. DOX showed good linear quenching ability for the blue fluorescence of HCQDs@MIP with a detection limit of 1.72 nM in the concentration range of 0.431 to 216 μM. The results proved that the fluorescence quenching of DOX to HCQDs was caused by static quenching and internal filtering effects. The fluorescent probe was successfully applied to the detection of DOX in injections, and the recovery rate was 94.9–102%.