Gold nanoclusters as fluorescent sensors for selective and sensitive hydrogen sulfide detection

As a highly toxic environmental pollutant and also an important gasotransmitter in diverse physiological processes, the selective and sensitive detection of hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) is very significant. In this work, acetylcysteine stabilized gold nanoclusters (ACC@AuNCs)-based fluorescent sensors had been successfully constructed for H₂S perception. The sensing principle was that H₂S-induced fluorescence quenching of AuNCs which attributed to both the formation of Au₂S between Au(I) in the AuNCs and H₂S and the increased particle size. The proposed sensors showed high selectivity toward H₂S over other anions, amino acids and thiols, and exhibited a stable response for H₂S from 0.002 to 120μmolL^-1 with a detection limit of 1.8nmolL^-1. In addition, the practical application of the designed sensors was further evaluated with water and serum samples, and the tested results agreed well with those obtained by ICP-AES method. The satisfactory recoveries and good precision show that the proposed fluorescent sensors has potential application in biological and environmental fields.