In Situ Formation of Ag Nanoparticles Capped by Photoactivable Ligands for Optical Sensing of Hypochlorite

Abstract

Photomediated ligands afford powerful tools to improve the spatial and temporal resolution in the clinical diagnosis and environmental monitoring. In this work, a photoactivable ligand was designed by attachment of a pyrene unit to the strained cyclic disulfide of lipoic acid. Co-incubation of the ligand with AgNO 3 under sunlight induce the in situ formation of Ag nanoparticles with a remarkable fluorescence enhancement. By integration of fluorescent and plasmonic modalities into one structure, the obtained Ag nanoparticles exhibit a dual-mode sensing to hypochlorite with fast response and high selectivity. This method could become an easy-toobtain, ready-to-use, and eco-friendly way to detect hypochlorite.