Gold nanoclusters as fluorescent sensors for selective and sensitive hydrogen sulfide detection

As a highly toxic environmental pollutant and also an important gaso transmitter in diverse physiological processes, the selective and sensitive detection of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is very significant. In this work, acetylcysteine stabilized gold nanoclusters (ACC@AuNCs)-based fluorescent sensors had been successfully constructed for H2S perception. The sensing principle was that H2S-induced fluorescence quenching of AuNCs which attributed to both the formation of Au2S between Au(I) in the AuNCs and H2S and the increased particle size. The proposed sensors showed high selectivity toward H2S over other anions, amino acids and thiols, and exhibited a stable response for H2S from 0.002 to 120 mu mol L-1 with a detection limit of 1.8 nmol L-1. In addition, the practical application of the designed sensors was further evaluated with water and serum samples, and the tested results agreed well with those obtained by ICP-AES method. The satisfactory recoveries and good precision show that the proposed fluorescent sensors has potential application in biological and environmental fields.