Yttrium and silicon co-doped carbon nanoparticles: multi-faceted collaborative enhancement of electroluminescence signals and aptasensor for high sensitivity detection of aflatoxin B1.

Abstract

Herein, yttrium (Y) and silicon (Si) co-doped carbon nanoparticles (Y/Si-CNPs) were synthesized as novel electrochemiluminescence (ECL) luminophore to construct ECL aptasensor for ultrasensitive detection of Aflatoxin B1 (AFB1). Importantly, the high ECL intensity was acquired on Y/Si-CNPs (15-fold higher than that of non-doped CNPs) with the multi-faceted collaborative enhancement of favorable electron affinity, conductivity, anti-aggregation caused quenching, and coreaction acceleration characteristics. Therefore, using Y/Si-CNPs as luminophore combined with the nicking endonuclease (Nb.BbvCI)-assisted signal amplification strategy to convert trace amounts of AFB1 into abundant output DNA, thereby effectively improving the sensitivity of the aptasensor. As expected, the proposed ECL aptasensor showed an excellent sensitivity for detecting AFB1 range from 1 pg·mL-1 to 1 μg·mL-1 at a low detection limit of 0.585 pg·mL-1 (S/N = 3). This strategy provides valuable insights for the development of co-doped ECL carbon nanomaterials to construct biosensors for food safety, environmental monitoring and other areas.