An Intelligent Artificial Sensing Platform for Discrimination of Formaldehyde and Nitrite in Food

Abstract

Formaldehyde (FA) and excessive nitrite are highly carcinogenic compounds that seriously endanger human health. Herein, we designed an artificial sensing platform (OPTY) based on 8-N2H4-BODIPY for the detection of FA and nitrite in food. Upon aldimine condensation with FA, OPTY produced strong blue fluorescence towards FA. By contrast, nitrite underwent intramolecular cyclization cascade reaction with OPTY to boast bright green fluorescence. OPTY has the advantages of high signal-to-noise ratio, good selectivity, and low detection limits (LOD = 26.5 nM for FA, LOD = 20.8 nM for nitrite). Furthermore, OPTY was fabricated into a portable sensing chip, which was combined with smartphone to form a portable sensing platform. The platform has been successfully applied to determine FA/nitrite in meat and seafood with high accuracy (93.49%-102.35%). Therefore, the intelligent artificial sensing platform can realize on-site visual detection of FA/nitrite content in food, showing broad application prospects in the field of food safety.

Keywords: Formaldehyde, Nitrite, Fluorescent probe, Intelligent artificial sensing platform