Smartphone-assisted chemiluminescent sensing of organophosphorus pesticides using hemin-loaded amphiphilic nanoparticles

Hemin-loaded amphiphilic nanoparticles enable stabilized luminol chemiluminescence. • Glow-type chemiluminescence allows direct smartphone imaging without excitation. • AChE inhibition is coupled with chemiluminescent readout for OP quantification. • Reliable OP analysis is achieved in food and environmental samples. Hemin-loaded amphiphilic nanoparticles (HeNPs) were engineered to stabilize hemin and enhance its catalytic performance in the luminol–H₂O₂ chemiluminescence (CL) system. The confined hydrophobic microenvironment effectively suppressed hemin aggregation and produced a stable glow-type emission, which could be directly captured by a smartphone without external excitation or optical accessories. By integrating this stabilized chemiluminescent platform with an acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibition mechanism, organophosphorus pesticides (OPs) were translated into quantifiable CL responses. The smartphone-based readout enabled sensitive and reliable analysis with good linearity. The proposed method was further validated in lake water and Chinese cabbage samples, where the results obtained by smartphone imaging showed good agreement with those from microplate-based CL detection and GC–MS. Overall, this work demonstrates a smartphone-enabled chemiluminescent sensing strategy for monitoring OP residues in food and environmental samples. Download: Download high-res image (118KB) Download: Download full-size image