Abstract
This work investigates a novel usage of aluminum-doped ceria nanoparticles (ADC-NPs), as the molecular probe in optical fluorescence quenching for sensing the dissolved oxygen (DO). Cerium oxide (ceria) nanoparticles can be considered one of the most unique nanomaterials that are being studied today due to the diffusion and reactivity of oxygen vacancies in ceria, which contributes to its high oxygen storage capability. Aluminum can be considered a promising dopant to increase the oxygen ionic conductivity in ceria nanoparticles which can improve the sensitivity of ceria nanoparticles to DO. The fluorescence intensity of ADC-NPs, synthesized via chemical precipitation, is found to have a strong inverse relationship with the DO concentration in aqueous solutions. Stern-Volmer constant of ADC-NPs at room temperature is determined to be 454.6 M−1, which indicates that ADC-NPs have a promising sensitivity to dissolved oxygen, compared to many presently used fluorophores. In addition, Stern-Volmer constant is found to have a relatively small dependence on temperature between 25 °C to 50 °C, which shows excellent thermal stability of ADC-NPs sensitivity. Our work suggests that ADC-NPs, at 6 nm, are the smallest diameter DO molecular probes between the currently used optical DO sensors composed of different nanostructures. This investigation can improve the performance of fluorescence-quenching DO sensors for industrial and environmental applications.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Wolfbeis OS (1991) Fiber optic chemical sensors and biosensors. CRC Press, Boca Raton
Chu CS, Lo YL (2010) Optical fiber dissolved oxygen sensor based on Pt(II) complex and core-shell silica nanoparticles incorporated with sol–gel matrix. Sensors Actuators B 151:83–89
Douglas P, Eaton K (2002) On the inappropriate use of gated emission measurements in oxygen quenching studies of luminescent thin film sensors. Sensors Actuators B 82:48–53
Kautsky H (1939) Quenching of luminescence by oxygen. Trans Faraday Soc 35:216–219
Basu S, Devi PS, Maiti HS (2004) Synthesis and properties of nanocrystalline ceria powders. J Mater Res 19:3162–3171
Lu JL, Gao HJ, Shaikhutdinov S, Freund HJ (2006) Morphology and defect structure of the CeO2(111) films grown on Ru (001) as studied by scanning tunneling microscopy. Surf Sci 600:5004–5010
Sanghavi R, Nandasiri M, Kuchibhatla S, Jiang W, Varga T, Nachimuthu P, Engelhard MH, Shutthanandan V, Thevuthasan S, Kayani A, Prasad S (2011) Thickness dependency of thin-film Samaria-doped ceria for oxygen sensing. IEEE Sensors J 11:217–224
Lee JS, Choi KH, Ryu BK, Shin BC, Kim IS (2004) Effects of alumina additions on sintering behavior of gadolinia-doped ceria. Ceram Int 30:807–812
Heitjans P, Indris S (2003) Diffusion and ionic conduction in nanocrystalline ceramics. J Phys Condens Matter 15:1257–1289
Mills A (1998) Controlling the sensitivity of optical oxygen sensors. Sensors Actuators B 51:60–68
Dhannia T, Jayalekshmi S, Kumar M, Rao TP, Bose AC (2009) Effect of aluminum doping and annealing on structural and optical properties of cerium oxide nanocrystals. J Phys Chem Solids 70:1443–1447
Chen H, Chang H (2004) Homogeneous precipitation of cerium dioxide nanoparticles in alcohol/water mixed solvents. Colloids Surf A 242:61–69
Lawrence NJ, Jiang K, Cheung CL (2011) Formation of a porous cerium oxide membrane by anodization. Chem Commun 47:2703–2705
Shehata N, Meehan K, Leber D (2012) Fluorescence quenching in ceria nanoparticles: a dissolved oxygen molecular probe with a relatively temperature insensitive Stern-Volmer constant up to 50 °C. J Nanophotonics 6: 063529/1-11
Chu CS, Lo YL (2008) A plastic optical fiber sensor for the dual sensing of temperature and oxygen. IEEE Photon Technol Lett 20:63–65
Iosin M, Canpean V, Astilean S (2011) Spectroscopic studies on pH and thermally induced conformational changes of bovine serum albumin adsorbed onto gold nanoparticles. J Photochem Photobiol A 217:395–401
Kraker E, Haase A, Lamprecht B, Jakopic G, Konrad C, Köstler S (2008) Integrated organic electronic based optochemical sensors using polarization filters. Appl Phys Lett 92:033302/1-3
Shen L, Ratterman M, Klotzkin D, Papautsky I (2011) Use of a low-cost CMOS detector and cross-polarization signal isolation for oxygen sensing. IEEE Sensors J 11:1359–1360
Eggins BR (1997) Biosensors: an introduction. John Wiley and Sons, New York
Yen DC, Gale BK (2003) An integrated optical oxygen sensor fabricated using rapid-prototyping techniques. Lab Chip 3:297–301
Shehata N, Meehan K, Leber D (2012) Dissolved oxygen sensing based on fluorescence quenching of ceria nanoparticles, SPIE Optics and Photonics conference. Nanoscience and Engineering, San Diego, California 4863: 84630/1-9
Trovarelli A (2005) Catalysis by ceria and related materials. Imperial College Press, London
Skala T, Tsud N, Prince KC, Matolin V (2011) Formation of alumina–ceria mixed oxide in model systems. Appl Surf Sci 257:3682–3687
Andersson DA, Simak SI, Skorodumova NV, Abrikosov IA, Johansson B (2006) Optimization of ionic conductivity in doped ceria. PNAS 83:1–4
Shehata N, Meehan K, Hudait M, Jain N (2012) Control of oxygen vacancies and Ce+3 concentrations in doped ceria nanoparticles via the selection of lanthanide. J Nanopart Res 14:1173–1183
Cullity BD (1956) Elements of x-ray diffraction. Addison-Wesley, Massachusetts
Lee YK, Kopelman R (2009) Optical nanoparticles sensors for quantative intracellular imaging. WIREs Nanomed Nanobiotech 1:98–110
Damyanova S, Pawelec B, Arishtirova K, Huerta MVM, Fierro JG (2008) Study of the surface and redox properties of ceria-zirconia oxides. Appl Cat A 337:86–96
Cappelezzo M, Capellari CA, Pezzin SH, Coelho LAF (2007) Stokes-Einstein relation for pure simple fluids. J Chem Phys 126: 224516-1-224516-5
Zhang H, Li B, Lei B, Li W (2008) Oxygen-sensing materials based on [Ru(bpy)3]+2 covalently grafted MSU-3 mesoporous molecular sieves. J Lumin 128:1331–1338
Lo YL, Chu CS, Yur JP, Chang YC (2008) Temperature compensation of fluorescence intensity-based fiber-optic oxygen sensors using modified Stern-Volmer model. Sensors Actuators B 131:479–488
Shinar R, Zhou Z, Choudhury B, Shinar J (2006) Structurally integrated organic light emitting device-based sensors for gas phase and dissolved oxygen. Anal Chim Acta 568:190–199
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Dr. Niven Monsegue, Dr. Jerry Hunter and Andrew Giordani from the Nanotechnology Characterization and Fabrication Laboratory, Institute of Critical Technologies and Applied Science at Virginia Tech for their training and assistance within characterization measurements. The authors appreciate the support of Dr. Mantu Hudait and Mr. Nikhil Jain with XRD measurements. Also, the authors are grateful to the financial support of the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in Virginia Tech and the Virginia Tech Middle East and North Africa (VT-MENA) program in Egypt.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Shehata, N., Meehan, K. & Leber, D. Study of Fluorescence Quenching in Aluminum-Doped Ceria Nanoparticles: Potential Molecular Probe for Dissolved Oxygen. J Fluoresc 23, 527–532 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10895-013-1186-x
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10895-013-1186-x