Highly sensitive ratiometric quantification of cyanide in water with gold nanoparticles via Resonance Rayleigh Scattering

Yulán Hernández; Yves Coello; Raluca M Fratila; Jesús M de la Fuente; Troy A Lionberger

doi:10.1016/j.talanta.2017.02.006

Highly sensitive ratiometric quantification of cyanide in water with gold nanoparticles via Resonance Rayleigh Scattering

Talanta. 2017 May 15:167:51-58. doi: 10.1016/j.talanta.2017.02.006. Epub 2017 Feb 3.

Authors

Yulán Hernández¹, Yves Coello², Raluca M Fratila³, Jesús M de la Fuente³, Troy A Lionberger⁴

Affiliations

¹ Departamento de Ciencias, Sección Química, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú PUCP, Lima, Peru.
² Departamento de Ciencias, Sección Química, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú PUCP, Lima, Peru. Electronic address: ycoello@pucp.pe.
³ Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Aragón (University of Zaragoza/CSIC) and CIBER-BBN, Calle Pedro Cerbuna 12, 50009 Zaragoza, Spain.
⁴ Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, United States; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, United States.

PMID: 28340752
DOI: 10.1016/j.talanta.2017.02.006

Abstract

A highly sensitive and selective ratiometric sensor for the quantification of cyanide (CN^-) in aqueous samples has been developed using spherical gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) stabilized by polysorbate 40 (PS-40). Three different AuNP sizes (14, 40 and 80nm mean diameters) were used to evaluate the response of the sensor using both colorimetric and Resonance Rayleigh Scattering (RRS) detection schemes. The best results were obtained for the sensor using 40nm AuNPs, for which the limits of detection (LODs) were found to be 100nmolL^-1 in a benchtop instrument and 500nmolL^-1 by the naked eye, values well below the maximum acceptable level for drinking water (1.9µmolL^-1) set by the World Health Organization (WHO). The practical use of the 40nm-AuNPs RRS sensor was demonstrated with the determination of CN^- in drinking and fresh waters. Finally, the sensor was successfully implemented in a compact portable device consisting of two light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and a miniature spectrometer, turning this sensor into a very potent tool for its application as a quick routine field-deployable analytical method.

Keywords: Analytical methods; Chemical sensors; Cyanide detection; Gold nanoparticles; Resonance Rayleigh Scattering; UV–Vis absorption spectroscopy.