ABSTRACT
Food fraud caused by the violation of glyphosate use in tea is frequently exposed, posing a potential health risk to consumers and undermining trust in food safety. In the work, an ionic fluorescent probe "[P66614] [4HQCA]-Cu2+ (PHQCA-Cu2+)" was constructed using Cu2+ and ionic liquids coordination through a competitive coordination strategy to detect glyphosate. This probe exhibited a prominent "turn-on" fluorescence response in glyphosate detection. PHQCA-Cu2+was destroyed by glyphosate with its strong coordination capability, and a new complex re-formed simultaneously between glyphosate and the Cu2+ in it, where Cu2+ served as an "invisible indicator" influencing fluorescence changes. Remarkably, PHQCA-Cu2+formed rapidly within 5 s, demonstrated exceptional sensitivity and selectivity, and satisfactory detection performance on paper strips impregnated withPHQCA-Cu2+.Importantly,PHQCA-Cu2+showed excellent recoveries in various green tea, which offered a viable method for identifying contaminated products from the supply chain quickly to enhance overall food safety surveillance.