In the last decades, the increase in global industrialization and the consequent technological progress have damaged the quality of the environment. As a consequence, the high levels of hazardous compounds such as metals and gases released in the atmosphere and water, have raised several concerns about the health of living organisms. Today, many analytical techniques are available with the aim to detect pollutant chemical species. However, a lot of them are not affordable due to the expensive instrumentations, time-consuming processes and high reagents volumes. Last but not least, their use is exclusive to trained operators. Contrarily, colorimetric sensing devices, including paper-based devices, are easy to use, providing results in a short time, without particular specializations to interpret the results. In addition, the colorimetric response is suitable for fast detection, especially in resource-limited environments or underdeveloped countries. Among different chemical species, transition and heavy metals such as iron Fe(II) and copper Cu(II) as well as volatile compounds, such as ammonia (NH₃) and acetaldehyde (C₂H₄O) are widespread mainly in industrialized geographical areas. In this work, we developed a colorimetric paper-based analytical device (PAD) to detect different contaminants, including Fe²⁺ and Cu²⁺ ions in water, and NH₃ and C₂H₄O in air at low concentrations. This study is a “proof of concept” of a new paper sensor in which the intensity of the colorimetric response is proportional to the concentration of a detected pollutant species. The sensor model could be further implemented in other technologies, such as drones, individual protection devices or wearable apparatus to monitor the exposure to toxic species in both indoor and outdoor environments.

中文翻译：

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用于空气和水中有害化合物检测的纸基比色装置。概念证明


过去几十年来，全球工业化的加速以及随之而来的技术进步损害了环境质量。因此，大气和水中释放的高含量的有害化合物（例如金属和气体）引起了人们对生物体健康的担忧。如今，有许多分析技术可用于检测污染物化学物质。然而，由于昂贵的仪器、耗时的过程和大量的试剂，其中许多是无法负担的。最后但并非最不重要的一点是，它们的使用仅限于经过培训的操作员。相反，比色传感设备（包括纸基设备）易于使用，可在短时间内提供结果，无需特殊专业人士来解释结果。此外，比色响应适合快速检测，特别是在资源有限的环境或不发达国家。在不同的化学物种中，过渡金属和重金属如铁Fe(II)和铜Cu(II)以及挥发性化合物如氨(NH ₃ )和乙醛(C ₂ H ₄ O)主要分布在工业化地区。地区。在这项工作中，我们开发了一种比色纸基分析装置（PAD）来检测不同的污染物，包括水中的Fe ²⁺和Cu ²⁺离子，以及空气中低浓度的NH ₃和C ₂ H ₄ O。这项研究是新型纸传感器的“概念验证”，其中比色响应的强度与检测到的污染物种类的浓度成正比。 该传感器模型可以进一步应用于其他技术，例如无人机、个人防护设备或可穿戴设备，以监测室内和室外环境中有毒物质的暴露情况。