Ultrasensitive electrochemical immunosensor for the detection of ancient sheepskin artifacts

The identification of leather artifacts assumes a crucial role in subsequent classification, restoration and conservation. Conventional methods are prone to environmental and technical impacts, and they exhibit deficiencies in detecting accuracy and sensitivity. To solve this problem, an electrochemical immunosensor was fabricated based on polypyrrole (PPy) and gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) for the detection of leather artifacts. This sensor has an extremely low limit of detection (LOD) of approximately 1.66 pg/mL and a linear range of 5 pg/mL-1 ng/mL, which meets the requirements of ultrasensitive detection. Moreover, the sensor demonstrates excellent selectivity and reproducibility, and its performance surpasses that of ELISA in detecting leather relics. Therefore, the proposed electrochemical immunosensor provides a new strategy for the identification of leather residues, showing profound prospect in analyzing protein materials in the archaeological field.