A portable microfluidic device integrated with electrochemical sensing platform for detection of multiple binders in ancient wall paintings

Abstract

The aging of the proteinaceous binders will cause the cultural relics to suffer from diseases such as flaking, cracks, and even peeling. Identifying the type of binders in a timely manner is conducive to restore diseased cultural relics. High-throughput and portable detection system are of great significance for researching cultural relic materials on the archaeological site. Therefore, in this work, a portable electrochemical microfluidic device for the simultaneous detection of casein, ovalbumin, and peach gum binders was developed. The proposed electrochemical immunosensor technology integrated with microfluidic device achieve the goals of miniaturization, portability and reagent-saving. For casein, ovalbumin and peach gum, excellent performance was obtained in terms of their limits of detection (LOD) at 0.237, 0.507, and 0.403 ng mL−1 (S/N = 3), respectively. In addition, the microfluidic sensing platform exhibited acceptable anti-interference ability, stability, and storage capacity. In order to evaluate the practical application value, the proposed microfluidic sensing device was applied for detecting eight archaeological samples from different historic sites. This work demonstrates great potential for high-throughput, portable detection of cultural relic proteinaceous binder materials.