Ultrasensitive determination of bisphenol A in water by inhibition of copper nanoclusters-enhanced chemiluminescence from the luminol-KMnO4 system

In the present work, a highly sensitive chemiluminescence (CL) system for determination of trace bisphenol A (BPA) was established. The method was based on the inhibitory effect of luminol CL by BPA on the Cu NCs-enhanced luminol-KMnO4 CL system for the first time. Water-soluble Cu NCs capped with BSA were synthesized. Under the optimized conditions, the inhibited CL intensity was proportional to the concentration of BPA ranging from 1.0 x 10(-9) to 1.0 x 10(-5) mol L-1, with a detection limit (3 sigma) of 1.2 x 10(-10) mol L-1. It indicated that the concentration level is lower by almost 1-3 orders of magnitude compared with alternatives. The relative standard deviation (RSD) of the method was 1.7% with 9 repeated measurements of 1.0 x 10(-6) mol L-1 BPA. The proposed method has also been applied to determine BPA in water samples with good accuracy and precision. The CL spectra, UV-visible spectroscopy and radical scavengers were conducted to explore the possible mechanism.