A Portable Smartphone-assisted Fluorescent Probe for Visual Detection of Hydrogen Peroxide

Hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ), a common additive in food industry, poses significant health risks when overused. Traditional detection methods face challenges such as reliance on bulky instrumentation, and poor portability. To address these limitations, we developed a novel hemicyanine-based probe (BIY) for rapid, portable, and visual H 2 O 2 detection in food. The probe possesses a rationally designed acceptor-π-acceptor architecture, which transforms into a donor-π-acceptor structure upon H 2 O 2 -triggered boronate ester cleavage. This transformation elicits a fluorescence activation phenomenon at 490 nm based on the enhanced intramolecular charge transfer mechanism. This method exhibited excellent sensitivity and selectivity. A smartphone-assisted sensing platform was further developed to quantify H 2 O 2 via RGB analysis, achieving on-site results comparable to those of laboratory instruments. The probe has validated its practical utility in milk samples with good recoveries, showing great potential in food industry.