Recent Advances in Detection Technologies for Melamine in Food Matrices

Food safety remains a major concern in global public health and regulatory governance. The illicit adulteration of melamine in food products has raised persistent concerns in food safety due to its potential health risks and the limitations of conventional protein determination methods. This review critically summarizes recent advances in melamine detection in food matrices, covering its physicochemical properties, recognition mechanisms, and major strategies, including conventional physicochemical analysis, optical and spectroscopic detection, electrochemical sensing, molecular recognition, and intelligent integrated platforms. Conventional chromatographic and mass spectrometric methods remain the gold standard for regulatory confirmation, but require costly instrumentation and complex pretreatment. Emerging optical, electrochemical, molecular recognition, and intelligent systems offer rapid, portable, and high-throughput screening, yet still face matrix interference, limited stability, reproducibility issues, insufficient standardization, and challenges in large-scale implementation. Future research should improve robustness, selectivity, portability, data-processing capability, and validation standards. Overall, this review provides a critical assessment of current melamine detection technologies and offers insights into developing practical, reliable, and intelligent platforms for food safety monitoring.