An aggregation-induced emission copper nanoclusters fluorescence probe for the sensitive detection of tetracycline

Abstract

Copper nanoclusters (CuNCs) is a promising fluorescent material for water detection with unique fluorescence characteristics and low cost. To boost the fluorescence characteristics of CuNCs, cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) modified material has the ability to improve the sensitivity, selectivity and sensing performance of the probe. Herein, fluorescence-enhanced copper nanoclusters (TA-CuNCs@CTAB) based on the tannic acid templated is designed due to the electrostatic interaction between CTAB and TA-CuNCs, the addition of CTAB induced the aggregation of TA-CuNCs, and the enhancement of fluorescence signal was achieved using the aggregation-induced emission (AIE) mechanism. As a new fluorescent probe (TA-CuNCs@CTAB) for tetracycline (TC) turn-off detection, it has satisfactory linearity in the two ranges of 5–50 μM and 50–130 μM, with a detection limit of 65 nM. The detection mechanism is that the internal filtration effect (IFE) of TA-CuNCs@CTAB induced by TC leads to a significant fluorescence quenching. Therefore, this method is used to detect TC in actual water samples, which is more convenient to operate, has high accuracy and good selectivity, and has a good application prospect in detecting TC.