Organo-modified hydrotalcite-quantum dot nanocomposites as a novel chemiluminescence resonance energy transfer probe

In this work, we fabricate an oriented luminescent quantum dot (QD)-layered double hydroxide (LDH) nanocomposite material by the highly orderly and alternate assembly of trace CdTe QDs in dodecylbenzene sulfonate bilayer bunches on the organo-modified LDH exterior surfaces. Interestingly, the novel QD-LDH nanocomposites can remarkably amplify chemiluminescence (CL) of the luminol-H2O2 system, which is attributed to an inhibition of QD oxidation by H2O2, an increase in the radiative decay rate, and an inhibition in the nonradiative relaxation of QDs. In addition, a novel flow-through column-based CL resonance energy transfer is fabricated using luminol as energy donors and the solid luminescent QD-LDH nanocomposites as energy acceptors for signal amplification. The applicability of this flow-through column is evaluated by determining H2O2 using luminol-H2O2 CL system. The CL intensity exhibits a stable response to H2O2 over a concentration range from 0.5 to 60 μM with a detection limit as low as 0.3 μM. Finally, the proposed method has been successfully applied to detect H2O2 in snow samples, and the results agreed with those obtained by the standard spectrophotometric method. Our findings indicate that the new luminescent QD-LDH nanocomposite material would be used for high throughput screening of complex systems with different sized QDs.