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Fabrication and application of noble metal nanoclusters as optical sensors for toxic metal ions

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Abstract

Atomically precise noble metal nanoclusters with ultrasmall physical sizes in the subnanometer range have emerged as a new class of probing fluorophores and have attracted considerable research interest because of their intrinsic physical, chemical, optical, biological, and electrical properties, such as stability, biocompatibility, and molecule-like photoluminescence. In comparison with traditional fluorophores such as organic dyes and quantum dots, noble metal nanoclusters have significant advantages, including low toxicity toward the environment and biological tissues, high stability when exposed to irradiation, and small size, that make them more suitable for biological sensing or biological labeling applications. Several reviews have summarized the fabrication of noble metal nanoclusters, including gold, silver, copper, and bimetallic nanoclusters. However, these reviews focused either on various facile preparation methods or multidisciplinary application areas. Here, we focus on the application of noble metal nanoclusters as optical sensing materials for toxic metal ions, including new synthetic approaches and discussion of the detection mechanism. We briefly summarize the development of metal cation monitoring technology that uses ultrasmall nanoclusters as the sensing probes. We also provide a fresh opinion on research expectations in the field of inorganic nanoscience and nanotechnology Finally, perspectives for future research hot topics are discussed.

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Acknowledgement

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31700746).

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  1. Gaozhi Ou and Jing Zhao contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sports, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, Hubei, 430074, China

    Gaozhi Ou, Jing Zhao, Changjin Xiong & Fan Dong

  2. The Key Laboratory for Biomedical Photonics of MOE at Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics – Hubei Bioinformatics & Molecular Imaging Key Laboratory, Systems Biology Theme, Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, 1037 Luoyu Road, Wuhan, Hubei, 430074, China

    Peng Chen, Biao Li & Xiaojun Feng

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  1. Gaozhi Ou
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Ou, G., Zhao, J., Chen, P. et al. Fabrication and application of noble metal nanoclusters as optical sensors for toxic metal ions. Anal Bioanal Chem 410, 2485–2498 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-017-0808-6

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