Coreactant-free polyfluorene nanoparticles for the electrochemiluminescence quantitative analysis of dopamine and norepinephrine

Abstract

Both dopamine (DA) and norepinephrine (NE) are important hormones and neurotransmitters in the human body. Their coreactant-free electrochemiluminescence (ECL) analysis is very promising and challenging. Herein, poly[(9,9-dioctylfluorenyl-2,7-diyl)-co-(1,4-benzo-{2,1′,3}-thiadazole)] nanoparticles (PFBT NPs) were prepared via a nanoprecipitation method and further developed as a coreactant-free ECL emitter due to its strong ECL emission without any exogenous coreactant. The ECL emission of PFBT NPs can be efficiently quenched by DA and NE rooting in the resonance energy transfer (RET) between excited PFBT NPs and oxidized DA and NE, thus achieving the coreactant-free ECL quantitative analysis of DA and NE. The corresponding linear ranges were 1.0 × 10⁻⁹–1.0 × 10⁻⁴ M and 5.0 × 10⁻⁹–5.0 × 10⁻⁴ M, corresponding detection limits were 4.0 × 10⁻¹⁰ M and 1.2 × 10⁻⁹ M, and corresponding quantification limits were 1.1 × 10⁻⁹ M and 3.5 × 10⁻⁹ M respectively. The PFBT NPs provided a coreactant-free ECL sensing platform for quantitative analysis of DA and NE and displayed promising applications in ECL analysis.