Development of Code‐Editable Multicolor Chemiluminescent Hydrogels and Their Application in the Detection of Sarcosine Using Portable Devices

Abstract Conventional luminol chemiluminescence (CL) is widely used in imaging and analytical assays. As far as we can search, there are no studies on the use of CL for information encryption and protection. Here, a novel CL hydrogel is developed. A rapid color visualization of sarcosine in urine using a mobile phone camera is achieved based on CL energy resonance transfer. Four different colors of CL hydrogels are prepared by adding different ratios of rhodamine B or fluorescein. In the multicolor CL hydrogels, activated CL can generate conventional multicolor code shift and original white light. The luminescence duration and the cause of the white light are analyzed using CL spectroscopy. Sarcosine oxidase is replaced with sarcosine in the multicolor CL hydrogels to obtain the translation of editable code, which facilitates the secondary information encryption and code transmissions. The effective luminescence time of these hydrogels are short (13–50 min), and code can be deleted naturally.