Neomycin sulfate-directed rapid synthesis of sub-5-nanometer gold nanoparticles: Application on the sensor array design

Abstract

Schematic illustration of sub-5 nm GNPs synthesis . The neomycin sulfate (Ne) and HAuCl 4 are incubated at alkaline pH. The mixture is subjected to microwave reaction to generate the sub-5 nm gold nanoparticles (GNPs). • Gold nanoparticles (GNPs) were firstly synthesized by using neomycin sulfate (Ne). • The GNPs were synthesized in very short time by using microwave reaction. • The colorimetric sensor array was designed for Ne detection. • The limit of detection of Ne is significantly lower than the reported data. Gold nanoparticles (GNPs) were firstly synthesized by using neomycin sulfate (Ne) as reducing agent. We developed a new strategy for synthesizing GNPs that involves mixing HAuCl 4 and Ne at alkaline solution. The GNPs were synthesized in very short time by using microwave reaction. The transmission electronic microscopy (TEM) results show GNPs with average size of 3.0–5.0 nm. The synthesized GNPs by using Ne enable us to design a colorimetric sensor array for detection of Ne. The sensor array was simply fabricated by extracting the color information (ΔRGB) of reaction liquids. We realized the detection of Ne among antibiotics in a rapid, selective, sensitive and efficient approach. The limit of detection (LOD) of Ne at 0.23 μM detected by the as-constructed sensor array is significantly lower than the reported data.