A circular dichroism sensor for Ni(2+) and Co(2+) based on L-cysteine capped cadmium sulfide quantum dots

A new circular dichroism sensor for detecting Ni(2+) and Co(2+) was proposed for the first time using chiral chelating quantum dots. The detection principle was based on changing of circular dichroism signals of the chiral quantum dots when forming a chiral complex with Ni(2+) or Co(2+). L-Cysteine capped cadmium sulfide quantum dots (L-Cyst-CdS QDs) were proposed as a chiral probe. The CD spectrum of L-Cyst-CdS QDs was significantly changed in the presence of Ni(2+) and Co(2+). On the other hand, other studied cations did not alter the original CD spectrum. Moreover, when increasing the concentration of Ni(2+) or Co(2+), the intensity of the CD spectrum linearly increased as a function of concentration and could be useful for the quantitative analysis. The proposed CD sensor showed linear working concentration ranges of 10-60 μM and 4-80 μM with low detection limits of 7.33 μМ and 1.13 μM for the detection of Ni(2+) and Co(2+), respectively. Parameters possibly affected the detection sensitivity such as solution pH and incubation time were studied and optimized. The proposed sensor was applied to detect Ni(2+) and Co(2+) in real water samples, and the results agreed well with the analysis using the standard ICP-OES.