Intelligent Colorimetric Indicators for Quality Monitoring and Multilevel Anticounterfeiting with Kinetics-Tunable Fluorescence

The spoilage and forgery of perishable products such as food, drugs, and vaccines cause serious health hazards and economic loss every year. Developing highly efficient and convenient time–temperature indicators (TTIs) to realize quality monitoring and anticounterfeiting simultaneously is urgent but remains a challenge. To this end, a kind of colorimetric fluorescent TTI, based on CsPbBr₃@SiO₂ nanoparticles with tunable quenching kinetics, is developed. The kinetics rate of the CsPbBr₃-based TTIs is easily regulated by adjusting temperature, concentration of the nanoparticles, and addition of salts, stemming from the cation exchange effect, common-ion effect, and structural damage by water. Typically, when combined with europium complexes, the developed TTIs show an irreversible dynamic change in fluorescent colors from green to red upon increasing temperature and time. Furthermore, a locking encryption system with multiple logics is also realized by combining TTIs with different kinetics. The correct information only appears at specific ranges of time and temperature under UV light and is irreversibly self-erased afterward. The simple and low-cost composition and the ingenious design of kinetics-tunable fluorescence in this work stimulate more insights and inspiration toward intelligent TTIs, especially for high-security anticounterfeiting and quality monitoring, which is really conducive to ensuring food and medicine safety.