Development of Optical Sensors Based on Quantum Dots Using Molecularly Imprinted Polymers for Determination of Prilocaine.

Optical sensors are analytical tools that able to provide analyte information. There are several ways to design optical sensors. This chapter presents an interesting optical sensor to detect prilocaine, a medicine, using quantum dots (QDs) combined with molecularly imprinted polymers (QDs@MIPs). This sensor simultaneously takes advantage of QDs and molecular imprinting technology, which enables the optical device to measure prilocaine with high selectivity and sensitivity. To prepare the optical sensor, CdTe QDs were used as fluorescent probes, and an imprinted silica polymer, as the recognition system, has been constructed on the QDs via sol-gel process to increase sensor selectivity.