The chiral recognition of organic compounds is of vital
importance
in the field of pharmacology and medicine. Unfortunately, the common
analytical routes used in this field are significantly restricted
by time spent and equipment demands. In this work, we propose an unprecedented
alternative, aimed at enantiomer discrimination and estimation of
their concentrations in an uncomplicated and instantaneous manner.
The proposed approach is based on the creation of an optical fiber
probe with two pronounced plasmonic bands attributed to gold and silver.
The gold or silver surfaces were grafted with moieties, able to enunciating
entrap chiral amines from solution, resulting in a wavelength shift
corresponding to each plasmonic metal. As a model compound of chiral
amine, we chose the DOPA, also taking in mind its high medical relevancy.
For chiral detection, the optical fiber probe was simply immersed
in an analytical solution of DOPA, and the selective shift of gold
or silver plasmon bands was observed in the reflected light depending
on DOPA chirality. The observed shifts depend on the concentration
of DOPA enantiomers. In the case of a racemic mixture, the shifts
of both plasmonic bands emerge, making possible the simultaneous determination
of enantiomer concentrations and their ratio. The analytical cycle
takes several minutes and requires very simple laboratory equipment.
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