Surfactant-Assisted Colorimetric Signal Enhancement in Paper-Based Glucose Sensing
- 1Korea University , , ,
Abstract
Paper-based colorimetric sensors offer a low cost and accessible platform for point-of-care (POC) analysis, but enzyme activity loss during coating and drying can weaken analytical signals and require high enzyme loadings or complex immobilization procedures. Although surfactants are widely used to improve wettability in paper-based assays, their potential contribution to colorimetric performance beyond these effects remains unclear. Here, we investigated surfactant-assisted colorimetric signal enhancement in a glucose assay implemented on a 96-puddle paper plate (96-PPP) and identified Tween 20 as the most effective surfactant. Its effect on detection performance became more pronounced as glucose oxidase (GOx) loading decreased; at 0.1 mg/mL GOx, Tween 20 lowered the limit of detection (LoD) from 0.113 to 0.034 mg/mL (approximately 3.3-fold) over a working range of 0–5 mg/mL, despite no statistically significant change in the measured contact angle at this loading. Tween 20 had no appreciable effect on the reaction in solution but preserved 95% of the apparent reaction rate constant after drying, compared with 11% without it, and atomic force microscopy (AFM) revealed a more dispersed dried enzyme morphology on mica. Tween 20-containing sensors also showed slower signal decay during repeated wetting–drying cycles and thermal stress, retained 77% (vs 26%) of the response at 400 mM NaCl, and exhibited within-PPP and between-batch coefficients of variation (CVs) below 10% (vs 12.3–19.5%), while maintaining glucose selectivity over potentially interfering molecules. These results indicate that Tween 20 enhances paper-based glucose sensing through mechanisms beyond simple wettability effects, in part by retaining enzyme cascade activity during drying, although the contributions of the individual enzymes and the underlying mechanism remain to be established.
Versions
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BibTeX
@article{kang2026surfactantassisted,
title = {{Surfactant-Assisted Colorimetric Signal Enhancement in Paper-Based Glucose Sensing}},
author = {Dain Kang and Jongho Lee and Minwoo Bae and Seokbeom Roh and Da Yeon Cheong and Hyungbeen Lee and Taeha Lee and Gyudo Lee},
journal = {ACS Omega},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1021/acsomega.6c08985},
url = {https://pubs.acs.org/acsodf/article/11/41/64069/5444150/Surfactant-Assisted-Colorimetric-Signal},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Surfactant-Assisted Colorimetric Signal Enhancement in Paper-Based Glucose Sensing
AU - Dain Kang
AU - Jongho Lee
AU - Minwoo Bae
AU - Seokbeom Roh
AU - Da Yeon Cheong
AU - Hyungbeen Lee
AU - Taeha Lee
AU - Gyudo Lee
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/02
JO - ACS Omega
DO - 10.1021/acsomega.6c08985
UR - https://pubs.acs.org/acsodf/article/11/41/64069/5444150/Surfactant-Assisted-Colorimetric-Signal
AB - Paper-based colorimetric sensors offer a low cost and accessible platform for point-of-care (POC) analysis, but enzyme activity loss during coating and drying can weaken analytical signals and require high enzyme loadings or complex immobilization procedures. Although surfactants are widely used to improve wettability in paper-based assays, their potential contribution to colorimetric performance beyond these effects remains unclear. Here, we investigated surfactant-assisted colorimetric signal enhancement in a glucose assay implemented on a 96-puddle paper plate (96-PPP) and identified Tween 20 as the most effective surfactant. Its effect on detection performance became more pronounced as glucose oxidase (GOx) loading decreased; at 0.1 mg/mL GOx, Tween 20 lowered the limit of detection (LoD) from 0.113 to 0.034 mg/mL (approximately 3.3-fold) over a working range of 0–5 mg/mL, despite no statistically significant change in the measured contact angle at this loading. Tween 20 had no appreciable effect on the reaction in solution but preserved 95% of the apparent reaction rate constant after drying, compared with 11% without it, and atomic force microscopy (AFM) revealed a more dispersed dried enzyme morphology on mica. Tween 20-containing sensors also showed slower signal decay during repeated wetting–drying cycles and thermal stress, retained 77% (vs 26%) of the response at 400 mM NaCl, and exhibited within-PPP and between-batch coefficients of variation (CVs) below 10% (vs 12.3–19.5%), while maintaining glucose selectivity over potentially interfering molecules. These results indicate that Tween 20 enhances paper-based glucose sensing through mechanisms beyond simple wettability effects, in part by retaining enzyme cascade activity during drying, although the contributions of the individual enzymes and the underlying mechanism remain to be established.
SN - 2470-1343
ER -