As a chronic disease, diabetes may result in serious complications that endanger the health and life of patients.

A sensitive fluorescent microfluidic sensor based on carbon quantum dots (CQDs), cadmium telluride quantum dots (CdTe QDs) aerogel and glucose oxidase (GOx) for urinal glucose detection was fabricated via a simple method.

Diabetes is a public health problem characterized by hyperglycemia, high mortality, and morbidity. A simple, rapid, and sensitive glucose detection method for diabetes screening and health self-management of patients with diabetes is of great significance. Therefore, an attractive urine glucose (UG) analyzer with advantages of fastness, sensitivity, and portability was developed. A cadmium telluride quantum dots (CdTe QDs)@glucose oxidase (GOx) aerogel circular array sensor can emit visible red fluorescence when excited by a 365 nm ultraviolet light source inside the analyzer. When urine samples containing glucose were dropped onto the sensor, glucose was oxidized by GOx to produce hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), which quenched the red fluorescence of CdTe QDs. The fluorescence images of the sensor were obtained using a CCD camera, and the linear relationship between the glucose concentration and the gray value of the fluorescence image was established. The analyzer shows good sensitivity (LOD, 0.12 mM) with a wide linear range of 0.12–26 mM. Based on the linear relation, the software of the analyzer was written in the C++ language, which can automatically give the gray value of the image and the corresponding glucose concentration. The UG analyzer was used for the detection of a large number clinical samples and compared with a variety of UG test papers, which all showed good detection performance. The novel analyzer we proposed has an important significance in the screening of diabetes and the self-management of diabetic patients.