Fe3+-selective and sensitive "on-off" fluorescence probe based on the graphitic carbon nitride nanosheets

Wenhua Tang; Ying Tian; Bingpeng Li; Qunhuo Liu; Dongqing Wang; Xufeng Jing; Junjie Zhang; Shiqing Xu

doi:10.1016/j.saa.2018.11.044

Fe³⁺-selective and sensitive "on-off" fluorescence probe based on the graphitic carbon nitride nanosheets

Spectrochim Acta A Mol Biomol Spectrosc. 2019 Mar 5:210:341-347. doi: 10.1016/j.saa.2018.11.044. Epub 2018 Nov 16.

Authors

Wenhua Tang¹, Ying Tian², Bingpeng Li¹, Qunhuo Liu¹, Dongqing Wang³, Xufeng Jing⁴, Junjie Zhang¹, Shiqing Xu¹

Affiliations

¹ College of Materials Science and Engineering, China Jiliang University, Hangzhou 310018, PR China.
² College of Materials Science and Engineering, China Jiliang University, Hangzhou 310018, PR China. Electronic address: tianying0204@163.com.
³ College of Life Science, China Jiliang University, Hangzhou 310018, PR China.
⁴ Institute of Optoelectronic Technology, China Jiliang University, Hangzhou 310018, PR China.

PMID: 30472598
DOI: 10.1016/j.saa.2018.11.044

Abstract

An effective and facile "on-off" fluorescence sensing approach for the determination of Fe³⁺ ion using a large area and relatively uniform size graphitic carbon nitride nanosheets (GCNS) was developed. The prepared GCNS have blue and stable emission, as well as excellent water dispersion, and were applied as an effective fluorescent probe that based on the quenched fluorescence for selective and sensitive detection of Fe³⁺ ion. Herein, we explain the ambiguous fluorescence quenching mechanism between the GCNS and Fe³⁺, which mainly springs from the redox potential and empty d orbital of Fe³⁺. The redox potential and unfilled d orbit of Fe³⁺ endow it excellent binding force with GCNS, which generates most obvious fluorescence quenching effect with respect to other metal ions. The limit of detection (LOD) for Fe³⁺ was found to be about 2.06 μM. Therefore, the prepared GCNS has the potential to be used as a fluorescent probe for detection.

Keywords: Fluorescence detection; Fluorescence quenching mechanism; G-C(3)N(4); Nanosheets.