Edit Csapó
University of Szeged, Hungary
Title: Development of fluorescent gold nanoclusters for selective detection of ions and small molecules in aqueous medium
Biography
Biography: Edit Csapó
Abstract
Gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) and gold nanoclusters (Au NCs) having characteristic plasmonic or highly photoluminescence features have become one of the most important types of nanomaterials that have been extensively investigated in many fields. The sub-nanometer sized Au NCs show unique physical and chemical properties such as well-defined molecular structure, discrete electronic transitions and characteristic size-tunable photoluminescence. Most of the protein-stabilized Au NCs exhibit intense red photoluminescence (λemission ~ 650 nm) which originates from the icosahedron gold core and partially independent from the applied protein.
In this work presented here, we highlighted the biocompatible fabrications of Au NPs and Au NCs using proteins (bovine serum albumin (BSA); lysozyme (LYZ), gamma-globulin (γG)), nucleotide (adenosine monophosphate (AMP) and amino acids (histidine (His); tryptophan (Trp), cysteine (Cys) which result in different nanostructures having tunable blue, green, yellow and orange emissions. The main goal of this work was to investigate the spontaneous interactions of AuCl4- and the studied biomolecules as well to optimize the gold/ligand ratios and pH on the formation of gold constructs. Based on the experimental results we provided important information on the gold intermediates and the formation mechanisms of the plasmonic or fluorescent nano-objects. Moreover, the fluorescent Au NCs were used for selective detection of different transition metal ions (e.g. Fe3+), anions and small molecules in aqueous solutions.