Recent Advances on Electrochemical Biosensing Strategies toward Universal Point‐of‐Care Systems

A number of very recently developed electrochemical biosensing strategies are promoting electrochemical biosensing systems into practical point‐of‐care applications. The focus of research endeavors has transferred from detection of a specific analyte to the development of general biosensing strategies that can be applied for a single category of analytes, such as nucleic acids, proteins, and cells. In this Minireview, recent cutting‐edge research on electrochemical biosensing strategies are described. These developments resolved critical challenges regarding the application of electrochemical biosensors to practical point‐of‐care systems, such as rapid readout, simple biosensor fabrication method, ultra‐high detection sensitivity, direct analysis in a complex biological matrix, and multiplexed target analysis. This Minireview provides general guidelines both for scientists in the biosensing research community and for the biosensor industry on development of point‐of‐care system, benefiting global healthcare.     

A Universal Strategy for Activating the Multicolor Room‐Temperature Afterglow of Carbon Dots in a Boric Acid Matrix

Carbon dots (CDs) have attracted attention in metal‐free afterglow materials, but most CDs were heteroatom‐containing and the afterglow emissions are still limited to the short‐wavelength region. A universal approach to activate the room‐temperature phosphorescence (RTP) of both heteroatom‐free and heteroatom‐containing CDs was developed by one‐step heat treatment of CDs and boric acid (BA). The introduction of an electron‐withdrawing boron atom in composites can greatly reduce the energy gap between the singlet and triplet state; the formed glassy state can effectively protect the excited triplet states of CDs from nonradiative deactivation. A universal host for embedding CDs to achieve long‐lifetime and multi‐color (blue, green, green‐yellow and orange) RTP via a low cost, quick and facile process was developed. Based on their distinctive RTP performances, the applications of these CD‐based RTP materials in information encryption and decryption are also proposed and demonstrated.