Amine
compounds are considered highly important in environmental
pollution, industrial, and medicinal fields. The objective of this
work was to develop a disposable, highly accurate, highly selective,
and low-cost paper-based probe through the combination of color change
of seven pH indicators for the detection of amine compounds in the
gaseous state. The probe was designed with seven rings which were
printed using the wax-printing technique and colored with different
pH indicators. The colors of the probe were analyzed using red, green,
and blue (
RGB
) values extracted from the images obtained
with a homemade smartphone application. The chemometric tools, principal
component analysis, and hierarchical cluster analysis methods were
adapted to further classify amine gases. The colorimetric probe showed
an excellent capability for detecting the amines with high accuracy,
prompt response, and high selectivity. These dye arrays have been
proven to detect ethanolamine (NH
2
CH
2
CH
2
OH), dimethylamine ((CH
3
)
2
NH), and trimethylamine
((CH
3
)
3
N) gases at parts per million scale.