Selective and Sensitive Detection of Limonene in Mango using Molecularly Imprinted Polymer Based Quartz Crystal Microbalance Sensor

In this study, we present and discuss the sensing applicability of molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) as selective materials in piezoelectric quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) sensors for detecting an important primary volatile compound, d-limonene present in varieties of mango. The proposed imprinted sensor is prepared from the copolymer of methacrylic acid and ethylene glycol dimethacrylate and further imprinted with Limonene. The performance of the sensor has exemplified by reproducibility, repeatability and selectivity studies where the prepared sensor was found to have repeatability and reproducibility of 98.4% and 98.8%, respectively. The sensitivity of the sensor is 0.16 Hz/ppm within the sensing range of 1-1000 ppm. Additionally, the developed sensor can distinguish the resemble gas successfully with selectivity factor of 58.16%. Therefore MIP based recognition approach can be coupled to QCM sensing platform in order to sense qualitative aroma present in mango selectively.