Constructing an enzyme-free highly sensitive blood sugar detection platform based on the Maillard reaction using amino-functionalized black phosphorus quantum dot hydrogels

Abstract

Diabetes is a chronic disease characterized by high blood sugar levels. Enzymatic methods are the currently recommended standard method for routine clinical measurement of blood sugar. However, these methods have several major problems that need to be addressed urgently: sensitivity to measurement conditions; interference from reducing or oxidizing substances in the blood; sensitivity to the oxygen content (especially in the case of the glucose oxidase method); and enzyme inactivation caused by improper storage conditions. To address these problems, an amino-functionalized black phosphorus quantum dot (BPQDs-NH₂) and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)-based hydrogel (BPQDs-PVA) is prepared. By using this hydrogel as an active medium, an enzyme-free highly sensitive blood sugar detection platform based on the Maillard reaction has been successfully constructed. All the as-fabricated electronic devices with/without glucose/blood sugar exhibit outstanding non-volatile rewritten resistive random access memory (RRAM) performance. The blood sugar values measured by this RRAM device are consistent with the actual measurement results achieved by the hospital's laboratory using the enzymatic method. The achieved glucose detection limit is 0.09 mM. This study has proposed a highly sensitive, stable and low-cost non-enzymatic detection method, which has great potential for application in fields such as biosensing, environmental monitoring and medical diagnosis. By optimizing materials and designing, it can achieve high selectivity, rapid response and long-term stability for the target substances, while reducing the cost and complexity of traditional enzyme detection.