Visual Artificial Tongue for Quantitative Metal‐Cation Analysis by an Off‐the‐Shelf Dye Array

Abstract

A chemical-probe array composed of 47 off-the-shelf dyes was prepared in solution format (New York Tongue 1: NYT-1) and was tested in the identification and quantitation of 47 cation analytes, including 44 metal ions, in addition to H(+), NH(4) (+), and tetrabutylammonium (TBA). The cation solutions were tested in a series of concentrations and the fold-change in effective absorbance was analyzed by principal-component analysis (PCA), hierarchical-cluster analysis (HCA), and nearest-neighbor decision to determine both identity and quantity of the analytes. Apart from alkali-metal ions (Na(+), K(+), Li(+), Cs(+), and Rb(+)), which behave very similarly to each other due mainly to their low response, most of the cations were clearly distinguishable at 10 mM concentration. The practical detection limit of each analyte was also determined by a sequential dilution and the nearest-neighbor decision method. In the finalized working analyte concentration range (approximately 10 mM down to 0.33 microM), by considering alkali metals as one analyte group, most of the analytes were correctly identified (99.4 %). Furthermore, the success rate at which the concentration of each analyte was correctly determined was also high (96.8 %).

Pattern-based sensing of triple negative breast cancer cells with dual-ligand cofunctionalized gold nanoclusters

“…Analogous to our own noses, chemical nose sensors preclude the need of prior knowledge of the analytes and are instead “trained” to identify analytes [29, 30]. A wealth of applications of chemical nose sensors are demonstrated, including detection of metal ions [31], volatile organic compounds [32, 33], carbohydrates [34, 35], amino acids [36, 37], and proteins [38–45]. Recently, these strategies have been expanded to more complex systems, such as cell [46–55] and bacteria [56–61] sensing.…”

Array‐Based Sensors

“…Not surprisingly, it has found application in the sensing of various analytes including cations [70][71][72], anions [73], electroneutral small molecules such as amino acids [74], saccharides [75,76], explosives [77], poisonous gases [78], peptides [79] and proteins [80,81], consumer products including sweeteners [82], beverages [26,70,83], and toothpastes [73], and so on.…”

Combinatorial Search of Sensors

“…In addition to minimizing the need for an external signal transducer, they are readily obtainable and allow the exploration of a wide range of binding interactions. Chang and coworkers optimized a set of 47 offthe-shelf dyes to systematically study their chemosensing potential for metal cations [73]. The cation solutions were tested in a series of concentrations, and the fold change in effective absorbance was analyzed by principal component analysis (PCA), hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA), and nearest neighbor decision to quantify the concentration of the analytes (Fig.…”