A coordination and ligand replacement based three-input colorimetric logic gate sensing platform for melamine, mercury ions, and cysteine

• Main Authors: Zhang, Lulu, Yuan, Yanwen, Wen, Xinglin, Li, Yue, Cao, Cuong, Xiong, Qihua
• Other Authors: School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: Biosensors
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/82702; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/40292
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Discrimination of different species in various target scopes within a single sensing platform can provide many advantages such as simplicity, rapidness, and cost effectiveness. Here we design a three-input colorimetric logic gate, based on the aggregation and anti-aggregation of gold nanoparticles (Au NPs), for the sensing of melamine, cysteine, and Hg2+. The concept makes use of the advantages of the highly specific coordination and ligand replacement reactions between melamine, cysteine, Hg2+, and Au NPs. Different outputs are obtained with the combinational inputs in the logic gates, which can serve as a reference to discriminate different analytes within a single sensing platform. Furthermore, besides the intrinsic sensitivity and selectivity of Au NPs to melamine-like compounds, the “INH” gates of melamine/cysteine and melamine/Hg2+ in this logic system can be employed for sensitive and selective detections of cysteine and Hg2+, respectively.