Biomass carbon quantum dots and Zr-MOFs as ratiometric fluorescent probes for sensitive detection of biogenic amines in shrimp samples

Abstract

Abstract: On-site rapid food safety testing is an important means of market supervision. A "Dual-response-Reverse" (one signal increases while the other decreases) type biomass carbon quantum dots(G-BCQDs)/Zr-MOFs ratiometric fluorescent paper-based sensor was designed for the visual detection of spermine concentration (SPM, a representative of biological amines).G-BCQD (emitting at 477 nm) and Zr-MOF (emitting at 537 nm) exhibit reverse fluorescence responses to spermine, namely quenching and enhancement, respectively, thus enabling fluorescence ratio detection. The smartphone was connected with the ratiometric fluorescent paper-based sensor to quantitatively detect the concentration of spermine. The results showed that there was a linear relationship between the concentration of spermine in the range of 0.1-220.0 μM and the R' value of RGB values, and the linear equation was R' = 0.3740CSPM + 141.75 (R2 = 0.9913). The detection limit of the method was 19.93 μM. Shrimp samples were selected to evaluate the practicability of the ratiometric fluorescent paper-based sensor for detecting spermine concentration. The results of the spiked recovery experiment showed that the recovery rate of the shrimp samples was in the range of 90.97-101.14%, and the relative standard deviation was less than 2.15%, indicating that the ratiometric fluorescent paper-based sensor had high accuracy and precision and was shown to be applicable for detecting SPM in spoiled samples and thus for monitoring spoilage.

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Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
21 Nov 2025
Accepted
11 Feb 2026
First published
11 Feb 2026

Anal. Methods, 2026, Accepted Manuscript

Biomass carbon quantum dots and Zr-MOFs as ratiometric fluorescent probes for sensitive detection of biogenic amines in shrimp samples

L. Jing, Z. Liu, M. Su, Q. Lu, X. Kong, G. Han and X. Wang, Anal. Methods, 2026, Accepted Manuscript , DOI: 10.1039/D5AY01937K

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