Ionic Current Rectification Triggered Photoelectrochemical Chiral Sensing Platform for Recognition of Amino Acid Enantiomers on Self-Standing Nanochannel Arrays

Abstract

Chirality is an intrinsic and essential property of nature, and the enantiomeric discrimination of chiral molecules can provide important information leading to a better understanding of chiral recognition in biological systems and furthering the development of useful molecular devices in biochemical and pharmaceutical studies. Therefore, the exploration of new detection techniques with high accuracy and reliability for high-throughput enantioselective detection is still highly desirable. Herein, a chiral enantiomers selective recognition platform based on self-standing titanium dioxide nanochannel arrays (TiO2 NCAs) is proposed to implement the ionic current rectification triggered photoelectrochemical (PEC) detection, which provides a novel sensing platform to discriminate chiral amino acid through synchronous output dual response signals of ionic current and photocurrent. The utilization of nanochannel arrays guaranteed the high-throughput detection, and the dual signal model avoided a "false positive"detection. In addition, based on the fabricated detection platform, various chiral substances can be facilely detected through integrating different chiral regulation units, which shed light on the construction of reliable chiral sensors for practical applications in a biological environment.