Sandwich-type electrochemical immunosensor based on MXene/CNTs substrate and MOFs (MIL-101) probe for leather artifact identification

Effective identification of excavated leather artifacts assumes a crucial role in the subsequent restoration and protection of the artifacts, and on a deeper level, it holds significant implications for the history and culture represented by the artifacts. Existing approaches fail to address the pain points of micro-trace detection and species identification. In this work, two-dimensional transition metal carbonitrides/carbon nanotubes (MXene/CNTs) and metal organic frameworks (MOFs) were employed as electrochemical immunosensor materials to construct and utilize a sandwich-type immunosensor for the first time to detect leather artifacts. The sensor exhibits a wide linear detection range of 10 −1 –10 3 ng/mL and an extremely low detection limit of 83 pg/mL, which can fulfill the requirements of ultra-sensitive detection. In addition, the sandwich electrochemical immunosensor demonstrates excellent specificity and stability, with the redox peak current value retaining over 95 % of the original value after 10 repeats of cyclic voltammetry (CV) and more than 85 % of the original peak current after one week of differential pulse voltammetry (DPV), with an RSD of 0.767 %. The immunosensor achieves satisfactory outcomes in both qualitative and quantitative detection when analyzing leather artifacts and micro-traces, and its performance surpasses that of existing methods. Therefore, this work not only introduces novel materials for the construction of sandwich immunosensors but also provides new concepts and approaches for archaeological detection of cultural relics.