Background-Free Imaging of Food Freshness Using Curcumin-Functionalized Upconversion Reversible Hydrogel Patch

Functionalized upconversion nanomaterials can overcome the drawbacks faced of strong background interference, photodamage, and spectral overlap by conventional optical labeling. Here, curcumin-functionalized upconversion hydrogel patch is designed with background-free and reversible for food freshness monitoring by ultra-sensitive response to biogenic amines. By loading the probes onto hydrogel patch, utilizing the good ductility to solve the problem of non-smooth surface coverage, thus accurately capturing biogenic amines. The presence of biogenic amines leads to the conversion of the diketone group on the probe to enolate ions, which triggers fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) and ultimately causes the upconverted fluorescence to gradually change from green to red. The probe exhibits good detection capability for biogenic amines with a low limit of detection (LOD) of 2.73 µm. Interestingly, the patch can be restored to its initial state after water rinsing, realizing reversible detection of biogenic amines. Additionally, combining the color recognition system of smartphone can convert the imaging signal into a data signal to achieve quantitative analysis and show a reliable assessment comparable to the results of high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). This study demonstrates the practical applicability in real-time monitoring of freshness, suggests great potential in developing optical nano-sensing strategy to ensure food safety.