Like Butterflies Recognizing the Scent of Flowers, the Dual Fluorescence/Ultralong Phosphorescence Eu@MCA-BPTC Identifies the Flavor of Alcoholic Beverages for Quality Assurance and Safety Detection

Inspired by butterfly foraging mechanisms, we developed a lanthanide-functionalized hydrogen-bonded organic framework, Eu@MCA-BPTC. This material exhibits dual fluorescence and ultralong phosphorescence (τ = 1953 ms), enabling sensitive detection of flavor components in alcoholic beverages. Benefiting from its distinctive multiemission characteristics, the luminescent probe integrates excellent sensing performance and advanced optical anticounterfeiting in a single system. It exhibits highly sensitive sensing (LOD: 0.16−0.48 μM) and fast response (<6.5 s) toward four typical aldehyde volatiles in alcoholic beverages. A portable Eu@MCA-BPTC@AG hydrogel is further fabricated for gaseous aldehyde detection and accurate identification of real alcoholic beverages. Meanwhile, the optical array based on Eu@MCA-BPTC@PDMS enables multilevel optical encryption with wavelength and time-resolved characteristics, delivering a theoretical coding capacity exceeding 10 22 . This bionic ultralong-afterglow material combines efficient aldehyde analysis and high-security optical encryption, showing great potential for practical applications in food safety monitoring and cutting-edge anti-counterfeiting technologies.