Abstract
Fumonisin B1 (FB1) is naturally present in the environment and can easily contaminate packaged foods during processing, storage and transportation, thus posing a threat to human health. We have developed an enzyme-free FB1 detector for the detection of packaged foods, which provides rapid and sensitive detection of FB1 in food. Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs; 5-10 nm) were uniformly dispersed on screen-printed electrodes, which acted as an excellent catalytic oxidizer. The surface structure of the modified electrode was characterized using scanning electron microscope and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Differential pulse voltammetry demonstrated a good linear electrochemical response towards FB1 at concentrations ranging from 1 ng L(-1) to 1 mg L(-1) with a detection limit of 0.08 ng L(-1). We employed the AuNPs-SPE sensor to detect FB1-spiked packaged meat products achieving recovery rates ranging from 89.7% to 113.3%.