Time-temperature indicator for perishable products based on kinetically programmable Ag overgrowth on Au nanorods

Chao Zhang, An Xiang Yin, Ruibin Jiang, Jie Rong, Lu Dong, Tian Zhao, Ling Dong Sun*, Jianfang Wang, Xing Chen, Chun Hua Yan

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

177 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Food safety is a constant concern for humans. Besides adulteration and contamination, another major threat comes from the spontaneous spoilage of perishable products, which is basically inevitable and highly dependent on the temperature history during the custody chain. For advanced quality control and assessment, time-temperature indicators (TTIs) can be deployed to document the temperature history. However, the use of TTIs is currently limited by either relatively high cost or poor programmability. Here we describe a general, kinetically programmable, and cost-efficient TTI protocol constructed from plasmonic nanocrystals. We present proof-of-principle demonstrations that our TTI can be specifically tailored and thus used to track perishables, dynamically mimic the deteriorative processes therein, and indicate product quality through sharp-contrast multicolor changes. The flexible programmability of our TTI, combined with its substantially low cost and low toxicity, promises a general applicability to each single packaged item of a plethora of perishable products.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)4561-4568
Number of pages8
JournalACS Nano
Volume7
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 28 May 2013
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • chronochromism
  • kinetic synchronicity
  • localized surface plasmon resonance
  • noble metal nanocrystals
  • perishables
  • time-temperature indicators

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