Issue 6, 2021

Nanochannel-based sensor for the detection of lead ions in traditional Chinese medicine

Abstract

Lead ions (Pb2+) are used in the quality control of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) preparations because they are highly toxic to human health. At present, sophisticated analytical instrumentation and complicated procedures for sample analysis are needed for the determination of Pb2+. Herein, a simple, fast, and sensitive peptide-modified nanochannel sensor to detect Pb2+ in TCM is reported, which is based on a Pb2+-specific peptide modified porous anodized aluminum membrane (PAAM). This peptide-based nanochannel clearly has the highest selectivity for Pb2+ when compared to other heavy metal ions, including As2+, Cd3+, Co2+, Cr2+, Cu2+, Fe3+, Hg2+, Mg2+, Mn2+, Ni2+, and Zn2+. Based on linear ranges from 0.01 to 0.16 μM and 10 to 100 μM, the detection limit was calculated to be 0.005 μM. Moreover, this peptide-based nanochannel sensor was successfully used to detect Pb2+ in complex TCM samples. In addition, when compared with the gold standard atomic absorption spectrophotometry (AAS) method, the recovery of the peptide-modified nanochannel sensor was between 87.7% and 116.8%. The experimental results prove that this new sensor is able to achieve accurate detection of Pb2+ in TCM samples. Thus, this sensor system could provide a simple assay for sensitive and selective detection of Pb2+ in TCM, thereby showing great potential in the practical application for the quality control of heavy metals in TCM.

Graphical abstract: Nanochannel-based sensor for the detection of lead ions in traditional Chinese medicine

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
02 Dec 2020
Accepted
31 Dec 2020
First published
19 Jan 2021
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

RSC Adv., 2021,11, 3751-3758

Nanochannel-based sensor for the detection of lead ions in traditional Chinese medicine

J. Tu, Z. Zhou, Y. Liu, T. Li, S. Lu, L. Xiao, P. Xiao, G. Zhang and Z. Sun, RSC Adv., 2021, 11, 3751 DOI: 10.1039/D0RA10157E

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