Solvent colorimetric paper-based polydiacetylene sensors from diacetylene lipids

► The solvent paper-based sensors were prepared from novel diacetylene monomers. ► The colorimetric respond to solvents changed from blue to red pattern was recorded as RGB values. ► Principal component analysis (PCA) of RGB gave good solvent discriminating results. ► According to the PCA score plot, this paper-based sensors can identify 11 organic solvents.