Analysis of starch dissolved in ionic liquid by glass nanopore at single molecular level

In this paper, the glass nanopore technology was proposed to detect a single molecule of starch dissolved in ionic liquid [1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride (BmimCl)]. Firstly, the influence of BmimCl on nanopore detection is discussed. It is found that a certain amount of strong polar ionic liquids will disturb the charge distribution in nanopores and increase the detection noise. Then, by analysis of the characteristic current signal of the conical nanopore, the motion behaviour of starch near the entrance of the nanopore was studied and analysis the dominant ion of starch in the BmimCl dissolution process. Finally, based on nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy simply discussed the mechanism of amylose and amylopectin dissolved in BmimCl. These results confirm that branched chain structure would affect the dissolution of poly-saccharides in ionic liquids and the contribution of anions to the dissolution of polysaccharides are dominant. It is further proved that the current signal can be used to judge the charge and structure information of the analyte, and the dissolution mechanism can be assist analyzed at the single molecule level.