High Sensibility of Quantum Dots to Metal Ions Inspired by Hydroxyapatite Microbeads

An approach for the sensitive and selective determination of Ag⁺, Cu²⁺ and Hg²⁺ ions was developed based on the fluorescence quenching of mercaptopropionic acid (MPA) capped CdTe quantum dots in the existence of hydroxyapatite (HAP) nanoribbon spherulites. Among various metal ions investigated, it was found that the fluorescence of CdTe QDs was only sensitive to Ag⁺, Cu²⁺ and Hg²⁺ ions. The addition of HAP into the CdTe system could bring forward a sensitivity improvement of about 1 to 2 orders of magnitude in the detection of Ag⁺ and Cu²⁺ compared with the plain CdTe system without the existence of HAP; while there was no sensitization effect for Hg²⁺. Under optimal conditions, the detection limits for Ag⁺, Cu²⁺ and Hg²⁺ were 20, 56 and 3.0 nmol·L^?1, respectively, and the linear ranges were 0.02–50, 0.056–54 and 0.003–2.4 µmol·L^?1, respectively. Mechanisms of both QDs fluorescence quenching by metal ions and the sensitization effect by HAP were also discussed.