Polymeric photonic crystal platform for organic amines detection based on enzyme inhibition.

Background: The extensive use of organic amines in industries has led to significant environmental concerns. Traditional detection methods, such as chromatography, are highly accurate but costly, time-consuming, and require specialized equipment, limiting their practical use in routine environmental monitoring. This underscores the need for portable, cost-effective, and user-friendly detection technologies.

Results: In this study, a novel sensor for organic amine detection based on inverse opal polymer photonic crystals (IOPPCs) has been facile designed and fabricated. By integrating urease-catalyzed reactions, the IOPPCs exhibited notable structural color changes in response to different amine solutions. Since the urease-catalyzed hydrolysis of urea directly affects the pH of the environment, the IOPPCs with a large surface area exhibit redshifted reflection peaks, enabling enhanced qualitative and semi-quantitative detection of organic amines. Notably, selective detection of ethylenediamine has been achieved at the low concentration from 1 × 10 mol L to 1 × 10 mol L. To enhance user accessibility, the platform incorporates an existing mobile app to convert the structural color data into quantitative information.

Significance And Novelty: The sensor platform demonstrates excellent resistance to interference, strong applicability, and reusability, highlighting its potential for real-time, on-site detection of organic amines. This has significant practical implications for environmental and public health monitoring.