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11-Mercaptoundecanoic acid capped gold nanoclusters with unusual aggregation-enhanced emission for selective fluorometric hydrogen sulfide determination

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Abstract

In present study, we discovered unusual solvent-mediated aggregation-enhanced emission (AEE) character of 11-mercaptoundecanoic acid capped gold nanoclusters (MUA-Au NCs). When aggregated in aqueous media, the MUA-Au NCs showed strong emission, which was weakened by adding ethanol. Interestingly, the suppressed emission was selectively enhanced in the presence of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) because H2S was absorbed onto Au NCs through the strong sulfur-gold bonding affinity. The hydrolyzed H2S, namely, HS−, made the Au NCs negatively charged, which aggregated again due to decreased solubility. The H2S-mediated fluorescence enhancement can be further amplified by introducing a hydrophilic thiolate (glutathione, GSH) onto the surface of Au NCs (GSH/MUA-Au NCs), which enabled sensitive determination of H2S. Under the optimized condition, a detection limit of 35 nM was achieved. The determination was not interfered by other anions such as F−, Cl−, Br−, I−, OAc−, N3−, NO3−, HCO3−, SCN−, SO32−, and SO42−. This excellent sensing performance allowed practical application of the GSH/MUA-Au NC-based sensing platform to accurate determination of H2S in human serum samples.

Unusual aggregation-enhanced emission character of 11-mercaptoundecanoic acid capped gold nanoclusters is discovered and has been applied for fluorometric hydrogen sulfide detection.

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21605003, 21521005, and 21575010), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (buctrc201619), the Open Research Fund Program of Beijing Key Lab of Plant Resource Research and Development, Beijing Technology and Business University (PRRD-2018-YB3).

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Author notes

  1. Fengniu Lu and Hongwei Yang contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Chemical Resource Engineering, College of Chemistry, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing, 100029, China

    Fengniu Lu, Hongwei Yang, Guirong Wang & Zhiqin Yuan

  2. National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), 1-1-1 Higashi, Tsukuba, 305-8565, Ibaraki, Japan

    Fengniu Lu & Hengdao Quan

  3. Beijing Key Laboratory of Plant Resources Research and Development, School of Science, Beijing Technology and Business University, Beijing, 100048, China

    Ying Tang

  4. Department of Applied Physics and Chemistry, University of Taipei, Taipei, 10048, Republic of China

    Cheng-Ju Yu

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  1. Fengniu Lu
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Correspondence to Ying Tang or Zhiqin Yuan.

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Lu, F., Yang, H., Tang, Y. et al. 11-Mercaptoundecanoic acid capped gold nanoclusters with unusual aggregation-enhanced emission for selective fluorometric hydrogen sulfide determination. Microchim Acta 187, 200 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00604-020-4159-1

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