Au@BPNs triggered interfacial non-radical chemiluminescence for highly sensitive and selective detection of zineb

The direct and qualitative detection of environmental pesticide residues is of paramount significance for food safety and pollution prevention, yet it continues to pose substantial challenges due to complex matrix interference, poor selectivity and insufficient sensitivity. In this study, we developed a non-radical chemiluminescence (CL) sensing platform, by leveraging Au nanoparticles-loaded black phosphorus nanosheets (Au@BPNs) to trigger interfacial electron transfer-mediated NaClO reaction and selective singlet oxygen (¹O₂) generation, thereby achieving highly selective and sensitive detection of zineb within complex agricultural samples. Specifically, Au@BPNs serving as both an adsorbent and an activator, which can adsorb zineb through the coordination of their lone pair electrons with zineb, forming P-O-Zn bonds, serving as electron transport channel to activate zineb. And then, the activated zineb was oxidized by ¹O₂ to produce excited CO₂ and SO₂ (CO₂*, SO₂*) with strong intrinsic CL emission. Notably, the key reactive intermediate during the CL reaction is the ¹O₂ rather than the traditional free radicals (e.g., hydroxyl radicals ^•OH, sulfate radicals SO₄^•-), which engages in a specific oxidant reaction with zineb. The fabricated Au@BPNs-NaClO-Zineb system was successfully detect zineb in wheat samples, with wide range from 3.6*10^-5 to 1.8*10^-7 mol/L, and a low limit of detection (LOD) of 2.41*10^-8 mol/L. This work provides a novel non-radical mediated CL sensing strategy for selective detection and remediation of zineb.