Currently, it is an ongoing challenge to develop fluorescent nanosphere detectors that are uniform, non-toxic, stable and bearing a large number of functional groups on the surface for further applications in a variety of fields. Here, we have synthesized hairy nanospheres (HNs) with different particle sizes and a content range of carboxyl groups from 4 mmol/g to 9 mmol/g. Based on this, hairy fluorescent nanospheres (HFNs) were prepared by the traditional coupling method (TCM) or adsorption-induced coupling method (ACM). By comparison, it was found that high brightness HFNs are fabricated based on HNs with poly (acrylic acid) brushes on the surface via ACM. The fluorescence intensity of hairy fluorescent nanospheres could be controlled by tuning the content of 5-aminofluorescein (5-AF) or the carboxyl groups of HNs easily. The carboxyl content of the HFNs could be as high as 8 mmol/g for further applications. The obtained HFNs are used for the detection of heavy metal ions in environmental pollution. Among various other metal ions, the response to Cu (II) is more obvious. We demonstrated that HFNs can serve as a selective probe and for the separation and determination of Cu(II) ions with a linear range of 0-0.5 μM and a low detection limit of 64 nM.
Keywords: 5-aminofluorescein; copper ion detector; coupling; fluorescent nanosphere.