Citation: Lin LI, Le CHEN, Lingjie HOU, Jiaqi JING, Jiayu DING, Tao ZHOU, Ruiping ZHANG. Smartphone-assisted fluorescent silver nanoclusters as ratiometric sensor for visual colorimetric detection of sulfide[J]. Chinese Journal of Inorganic Chemistry, ;2025, 41(11): 2261-2271. doi: 10.11862/CJIC.20250130 shu

Smartphone-assisted fluorescent silver nanoclusters as ratiometric sensor for visual colorimetric detection of sulfide

Lin LI ^{1, 2,,} ,
Le CHEN ³ ,
Lingjie HOU ¹ ,
Jiaqi JING ¹ ,
Jiayu DING ¹ ,
Tao ZHOU ¹ ,
Ruiping ZHANG ^2,,

1.
College of Chemistry and Materials, Taiyuan Normal University, Jinzhong, Shanxi 030619, China
2.
The Radiology Department of Shanxi Provincial People's Hospital, Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan 030012, China
3.
School of Pharmaceutical Science, Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan 030001, China

Corresponding author: Lin LI, lilin@tynu.edu.cn Ruiping ZHANG, zrp_7104@sxmu.edu.cn
Received Date: 16 April 2025
Revised Date: 25 September 2025

Figures(7)

Based on the aggregation-induced self-assembly strategy, the ratiometric red fluorescent silver nanoclusters (PEI/PVP-AgNCs) were developed by employing a one-pot low-heat reaction with silver nitrate (AgNO₃), which used the complex as ligands that formed by hydrogen-binding between polyethyleneimine (PEI) and polyethylpyrrolidone (PVP) with abundant amine group and carbonyl group, and 2-mercaptobenzothiazole (MBT) as the aggregation inductive agent. The optical properties and structural morphology of PEI/PVP-AgNCs were characterized. It was found that upon the excitation at 365 nm, PEI/PVP-AgNCs exhibits two fluorescence emission peaks centered at 435 and 610 nm, respectively. Besides, it revealed that the morphology of PEI/PVP-AgNCs was quasi-spherical with an average diameter of 2.0 nm. Interestingly, the fluorescence at 610 nm of PEI/PVP-AgNCs could be effectively quenched with the addition of S^2-, owing to the formation of Ag₂S between the soft base S^2- and the soft acid Ag⁺ based on the "soft affinity soft" binding principle of the hard-soft-acid-base theory, while no significant change at 435 nm due to the PEI/PVP complex does not react with S^2-, thus the fluorescence at 610 nm (F₆₁₀) can be used as a response signal and the fluorescence at 435 nm (F₄₃₅) as a reference signal. Based on the above response signal and reference signal, the high selectivity and sensitivity detection of S^2- can be achieved by utilizing the fluorescence intensity ratio (F₄₃₅/F₆₁₀) of PEI/PVP-AgNCs, which expanded the detection range from 50-350 nmol·L^-1 and 720-920 nmol·L^-1 with a sensitive detection limit of 1.1 nmol·L^-1. From this, PEI/PVP-AgNCs was designed as a paper-based sensor, and it was found that the fluorescence color changed from red to blue under ultraviolet lamp after the S^2- interacted with PEI/PVP-AgNCs test strips through the analysis of photos taken with a smartphone, thus the visual colorimetric fluorescence detection of S^2- can be realized. Based on the established method, the PEI/PVP-AgNCs were successfully applied to the quantification of S^2- content in actual water samples with the recoveries of 98.91%-102.24% and obtained satisfying results. The results show that the ratiometric fluorescent silver nanosensor can be applied to assess environmental water contamination.
- ratiometric fluorescence sensor,
- silver nanoclusters,
- visual colorimetric detection of S^2-,
- smartphone-assisted
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