A selective and sensitive optical sensor for dissolved ammonia detection via agglomeration of fluorescent Ag nanoclusters and temperature gradient headspace single drop microextraction

Abstract

In this paper, a simple sensor platform is presented for highly selective and sensitive detection of dissolved ammonia in aqueous solutions without pretreatment based on temperature gradient headspace single drop microextraction (HS-SDME) technique, and fluorescence and UV-vis spectrophotometry are utilized with the Ag nanoclusters (Ag NCs) functioned by citrate and glutathione as the probe. The sensing mechanism is based on the volatility of ammonia gas and the active response of Ag NCs to pH change caused by the introduction of ammonia. High pH can make the Ag NCs agglomerate and lead to the obvious decrease of fluorescence intensity and absorbance of Ag NCs solution. Moreover, the presented method exhibits a remarkably high selectivity toward dissolved ammonia over most of inorganic ions and amino acid, and shows a good linear range of 10-350μM (0.14-4.9mgNL^-1) with a low detection limit of 336nM (4.70μgNL^-1) at a signal-to-noise ratio of 3. In addition, the practical applications of the sensor have been successfully demonstrated by detecting dissolved ammonia in real samples.

Keywords: Ag nanoclusters; Dissolved ammonia; Fluorescence; Headspace single drop microextraction; UV–vis spectrophotometry.