Harnessing sustainable nanoclusters for sensitive optical detection of tetracyclines and the underlying mechanism
Miguel Justo‐Tirado, Irene Pérez‐Herráez, Jorge Escorihuela, Raúl Arenal, Elena Zaballos-Garcı́a, Julia Pérez‐Prieto
Abstract
-acetyl-l-cysteine (AuNC@NAC). This nanocluster exhibits a fluorescence emission peak at 700 nm, which gradually decreases at increasing concentrations of antibiotics, such as tetracyclines. The limit of detection (LOD) was determined to be 0.8 ppm with a linear range of 0.1-140 μM (0.04-62 ppm). This method showcased exceptional selectivity in the detection of tetracyclines compared to anions, metallic cations and amino acids. The underlying mechanism has been elucidated, and the fluorescence quenching was found to be a combination of dynamic and static quenching mechanisms, with photoinduced electron transfer (PET) identified as the primary process for dynamic quenching.