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Fluorometric determination of cadmium(II) and mercury(II) using nanoclusters consisting of a gold-nickel alloy

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Abstract

A one-pot route has been developed for the preparation of bovine serum albumin-templated nickel-doped bimetallic gold-nickel nanoclusters (BSA-Au-Ni NCs) at a 10:1 M ratio of the precursor salts in a BSA matrix under alkaline conditions. The metal ions are reduced to the metal alloys by BSA. The resulting NCs display strong fluorescence and dual emission with peaks at 405 and 640 nm, respectively, under excitation at 340 nm. Fluorescence is strongly enhanced on addition of Cd(II) ions, but quenched on addition of Hg(II) ions. The findings have been exploited to design a fluorometric method for the separate determination of Cd(II) and Hg(II), respectively. The optimized analytical nanosystem displays relatively good dynamics between enhancement and quenching. Cd(II) and Hg(II) can be quantified in the 0 to 200 and 0 nM to 24 μM, respectively. The limits of detection are ~1.8 nM in both cases, which indicates the highest sensitivity to Cd(II) and Hg(II) ions for a fluorescent probe. This new kind of nanocrystal probe is hardly interfered by a range of commonly encountered metal ions. Its advantages were demonstrated by determining Cd(II) and Hg(II) ions in spiked serum samples.

Dually emitting nanoclusters composed of gold-nickel alloys are shown to act as very sensitive fluorescent probes for the detection of Cd(II) and Hg(II) ions.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National High Technology Research and Development Program (“863” Program) of China (2015AA020502), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Southeast Universities (CXLX13-087), the Open Research Fund of State Key Laboratory of Bioelectronics, Southeast University, and the Open Research Fund of Key Laboratory of Energy Thermal Conversion and Control of Ministry of Education, Southeast University.

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    1. Jiangsu Province Hi-Tech Key Laboratory for Bio-medical Research, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, 211189, China

      Zhong-Xia Wang, Yun-Xia Guo & Shou-Nian Ding

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    1. Zhong-Xia Wang
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    2. Yun-Xia Guo
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    3. Shou-Nian Ding
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    Correspondence to Shou-Nian Ding.

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    Zhong-Xia Wang and Shou-Nian Ding contributed equally to this work.

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    Wang, ZX., Guo, YX. & Ding, SN. Fluorometric determination of cadmium(II) and mercury(II) using nanoclusters consisting of a gold-nickel alloy. Microchim Acta 182, 2223–2231 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00604-015-1563-z

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