A highly sensitive and selective fluorescence turn-on probe for the sensing of H2S in vitro and in vivo.

A fluorescence turn-on probe, 2-butyl-1,3-dioxo-2,3-dihydro-1H-benzo[de]isoquinolin-6-yl 2,4-dinitrobenzenesulfonate (NT-SH), has been constructed for sensing of hydrogen sulfide (H2S). NT-SH exhibited excellent detection performance including favorable water solubility, low fluorescence background, high enhancement (45-fold), large linear response range (0-50 µM) and low detection limit (80.01 nM) for H2S in aqueous. In addition, the response mechanism of NT-SH for H2S was confirmed by the theoretical calculation and mass spectral analysis. More importantly, the imaging experiments of H2S in vitro and in vivo confirmed that NT-SH had low cytotoxicity, and favorable biocompatibility. In addition, it illustrated that NT-SH was able to detected exogenous H2S in living cells and zebrafish. These results suggested that NT-SH can be act as a potential molecular tool for detecting of H2S in aqueous solution, in vitro and in vivo.

A colorimetric and fluorescence turn-on probe for the detection of palladium in aqueous solution and its application in vitro and in vivo.

Palladium has attracted a growing number of attention due to its widely application and environmental toxicity. Consequently, a novel colorimetric and fluorescent turn-on probe (NT-Pd) was designed for sensing of palladium. This probe was capable of detecting palladium in aqueous solution (DMSO was less than 1%, v/v). Under this mild condition, NT-Pd displayed high selectivity and sensitivity for sensing of palladium in both colorimetric and fluorescent strategy, such as low detection limit (5.30 nM) and rapid response time (within 10 min). In addition, NT-Pd was successfully applied for imaging of exogenous palladium in living cells and zebrafishes with good biocompatibility and low toxicity, indicating this probe has satisfactory application potential to track palladium in the complicated biological system.

Capillarity-based preparation system for optical colorimetric sensor arrays.

In recent years, optical colorimetric sensor arrays have demonstrated beneficial features, including rapid response, high selectivity, and high specificity; as a result, it has been extensively applied in food inspection and chemical studies, among other fields. There are instruments in the current market available for the preparation of an optical colorimetric sensor array, but it lacks the corresponding research of the preparation mechanism. Therefore, in connection with the main features of this kind of sensor array such as consistency, based on the preparation method of contact spotting, combined with a capillary fluid model, Washburn equation, Laplace equation, etc., this paper develops a diffusion model of an optical colorimetric sensor array during its preparation and sets up an optical colorimetric sensor array preparation system based on this diffusion model. Finally, this paper compares and evaluates the sensor arrays prepared by the system and prepared manually in three aspects such as the quality of array point, response of array, and response result, and the results show that the performance index of the sensor array prepared by a system under this diffusion model is better than that of the sensor array of manual spotting, which meets the needs of the experiment.

Continuous Preparation of Carbon Nanotube Film and Its Applications in Fuel and Solar Cells.

So far, simultaneously realizing the continuous, controllable, and scalable preparation of carbon nanotube (CNT) film has remained a big challenge. Here, we report a scalable approach to continuously prepare CNT film with good control of film size and thickness. This is achieved through the layer-by-layer condensation and deposition of a cylindrical CNT assembly that is continuously produced from a floating catalyst CVD reactor on a paper strip. The promising applications of such a film are demonstrated by directly using it as an effective protecting layer for the Pt/C catalyst in proton exchange membrane fuel cells and as an efficient counter electrode material in quantum-dot-sensitized solar cells.

Continuous Preparation of Copper/Carbon Nanotube Composite Films and Application in Solar Cells.

Realizing the continuous and large scale preparation of particle/carbon nanotube (CNT) composites with enhanced functionalities, and broad applications in energy conversion, harvesting, and storage systems, remains as a big challenge. Here, we report a scalable strategy to continuously prepare particle/CNT composite films in which particles are confined by CNT films. This is achieved by the continuous condensation and deposition of a cylindrical assembly of CNTs on a paper strip and the in situ incorporation of particles during the layer-by-layer deposition process. A Cu/CNT composite film is prepared as an example; such a film exhibits very high power conversion efficiency when it is used as a counter electrode in a solar cell, compared with previous materials under otherwise identical conditions. The proposed method can be extended to other CNT-based composite films with excellent functionalities for wide applications.

A novel device based on a fluorescent cross-responsive sensor array for detecting lung cancer related volatile organic compounds.

In this paper, a novel, simple, rapid, and low-cost detection device for lung cancer related Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) was constructed. For this task, a sensor array based on cross-responsive mechanism was designed. A special gas chamber was made to insure sensor array exposed to VOCs sufficiently and evenly, and FLUENT software was used to simulate the performance of the gas chamber. The data collection and processing system was used to detect fluorescent changes of the sensor arrays before and after reaction, and to extract unique patterns of the tested VOCs. Four selected VOCs, p-xylene, styrene, isoprene, and hexanal, were detected by the proposed device. Unsupervised pattern recognition methods, hierarchical cluster analysis and principal component analysis, were used to analyze data. The results showed that the methods could 100% discriminate the four VOCs. What is more, combined with artificial neural network, the correct rate of quantitative detection was up to 100%, and the device obtained responses at concentrations below 50 ppb. In conclusion, the proposed detection device showed excellent selectivity and discrimination ability for the VOCs related to lung cancer. Furthermore, our preliminary study demonstrated that the proposed detection device has brilliant potential application for early clinical diagnosis of lung cancer.

Development of a colorimetric sensor array for the discrimination of Chinese liquors based on selected volatile markers determined by GC-MS.

A new colorimetric sensor array was developed for the discrimination of 12 high-alcoholic Chinese base liquors from Luzhou Co., Ltd., and 15 commercial Chinese liquor of different brands as well as flavor types. Seventeen volatile compounds within four chemical groups were determined as markers in the base liquor by GC-MS analysis and factor analysis method (FAM). A specialized colorimetric sensor array composed of 20 sensitive dots was fabricated accordingly to obtain sensitive interaction with different types of volatile markers. Discrimination of the liquor samples was subsequently performed using chemometric and statistical methods, including principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA). The results suggested that facile identification of either base liquors with high-alcoholic volume or commercial liquors of the same flavor types could be achieved by analysis of the color change profiles. The response of the sensor improved significantly in comparison with those that rely on nonspecific interactions, and no misclassification was observed for both liquor samples using two chemometric methods. Besides, it was also found that the discrimination is closely related to the characteristic flavor compounds (esters, aldehydes, and acids) and alcoholic strength in liquors, and its performance was even comparable with that of GC-MS.

A novel chemical detector using colorimetric sensor array and pattern recognition methods for the concentration analysis of NH3.

With a colorimetric sensor array comprising chemoresponsive dyes, a simple, rapid, and cost-effective integrated system for differentiating low-concentration gases was described. The system could be used to identify gases by detecting the color change information of the chemoresponsive dyes based on porphyrins before and after reaction with the target gas; the colorimetric sensor array images were collected by a charge coupled device and processed with image analysis to get the color changes of the dyes in the array. Temperature, humidity, and flux of the chamber could be detected and displayed on the personal computer screen. A low-concentration [30-210 ppb (parts per 10(9))] NH(3) was detected by the system. This prototype successfully differentiated four concentration levels of NH(3) in less than 1 min. Pattern recognition methods, such as the backpropagation neural network and the radial basis function neural network, validated the effect of the developed sensor system both with 100% classification with feature vectors at single time point as inputs.