Researchers from the Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences established a high-throughput method for the rapid detection of pesticide residues (i.e. Chlorpyrifos and Carbofuran) in water. This method combined Quantum Dot labeled Molecularly Imprinted Polymer (QD-MIP) with Flow Cytometry (FC) technology.

The researchers found that the fluorescence intensity of QD-MIP decreased linearly with the increasing of Chlorpyrifos or Carbofuran in certain concentration ranges.

When using this method to detect Chlorpyrifos in water samples, the limit of detection is down to 0.01 mg/L, and the recovery rate is 92.8 ± 4.8%. The limit of detection of Carbofuran is as low as 0.2 μg/L, and the recovery rate is up to 94.1 ± 3.7%. The whole detection procedure (including pretreatment) can be completed within 2 hours.

The new method is less time consuming and easy to operate. It is “a promising prescreening tool for monitoring environmental contamination in samples”, the researchers said.

The study results above have been published in Analytical Letters and Analytical Sciences, respectively entitled “A Novel Method for the Detection of Chlorpyrifos by Combining Quantum Dot labeled Molecularly Imprinted Polymer with Flow Cytometry” and “Development and Applications of Quantum Dot-based Molecularly Imprinted Polymer Composites for Optosensing of Carbofuran in Water”. The first author is Dr. Zhang Hong and Dr. Zhou Qiang, respectively. The corresponding author of both papers is Prof. Wang Yinghong.

These studies are financially supported by the National Key Basic Research Development Project of China and the Science and Technology Project Foundation of Shenyang.