A Biomimetic Potentiometric Membrane Sensor using Molecularly Imprinted Nano-Polymer for Furosemide Drug Analysis

A potentiometric sensor was made using a non-covalent imprinted nano-polymer for analysis of furosemide pharmaceutical compound. Furosemide is a diuretic drug which is also categorized among the doping agent. The nano-molecularly imprinted polymer (nano-MIP) was prepared through precipitation polymerization, where furosemide was used as a template molecule, acryl amid (AA) as a functional monomer and ethylene glycol dimethacrylat (EGDMA) as a cross-linking agent. The sensor showed a selective and sensitive response to the analyte (the template molecule) in aqueous solutions. The MIP-based sensor responded Nernstian (51.8±0.3 mV decade−1) in a concentration range of 7.5×10-6 to 1.0×10-1 mol L-1 with a lower detection limit of 5.0×10-6 mol L-1. The response time of the sensor was ∼20 s, a high performance and a satisfactory long-term stability (more than 2 months). The proposed sensor has acceptable accuracy, sensitivity and precision to be used for furosemide assay in some pharmaceutical preparations.