Development of a simple and rapid dipstick paper-based test strip for colorimetric determination of nitrate and nitrite in water and foodstuffs

A rapid user-friendly paper-based test strip using zinc microparticles in conjugation with Griess reagent was developed for nitrite and nitrate detection. Test strips were fabricated using a simple and fast method of step-by-step immersion into reagents so that each strip contained a single detection pad for nitrite detection and another separate pad for nitrate detection. To reduce nitrate to nitrite, zinc microparticles suspended in ethanolic solution of polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) were uniformly immobilized on the paper strips that were previously impregnated in the Griess reagent and dried. The Griess reagent components were optimized to reach the highest color intensity. The optimized test strip was able to determine both nitrite and nitrate with respective detection limits of 0.43 and 9.43 mg/kg and a detection time of 60 s. The performance of the new test strips was evaluated for the simultaneous colorimetric detection of nitrite and nitrate in water and different food samples.