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Chemical Redox-Modulated Etching of Plasmonic Nanoparticles for Nitrite Detection: Comparison Among Gold Nanosphere, Nanorod, and Nanotriangle

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Abstract

Colorimetric detection based on etching of plasmonic nanoparticles represents a relatively new strategy compared to that based on aggregation-based assay. It has been attracting research interest due to its advantages of rapidity, cost-effectiveness, and straightforward signaling. Boosted by the development of solution-phase synthesis, a range of shape-controlled plasmonic nanoparticles has emerged and been widely employed for colorimetric detection, including nanospheres, nanorods and nanotriangles. It has also been an opening question that which nanoparticle shapes should be chosen for a given analytical applications based on etching of plasmonic nanoparticles. This study demonstrated a colorimetric nitrite detection based on chemical etching of gold nanoparticles. Using nitrite-accelerated oxidation of iodide ion (I−), the plasmonic nanoparticles are rapidly etched by the oxidation product iodine (I2), leading to the formation of nanoparticles with etched morphology and shifted and plasmon resonance. Our results showed that gold nanosphere (AuNS) with large surface-area-to-volume (SAV) ratio and gold nanotriangle (AuNT) with sharp tips are highly active and afford fast etching in the presence of nitrite. The sensitivity of AuNS is higher than that of AuNT, and the detection limit is 4.5 μM. Gold nanorod (AuNR) exhibits a comparable detection sensitivity to the AuNT because of similar aspect ratio and SAV ratio, but the slowest etching among the three types of nanoparticles. Given the high sensitivity and stability, the AuNSs are recommended for nitrite detection, and have been applied in the detection of drinking water.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in-part by a Natural Science Foundation of China for Young Researchers (No. 21805263), and a Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation (ZR2019QC011). The financial support by a Shandong Provincial Soft Science Research Program (2019RKE29001) and a Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities is also acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Food Science and Engineering, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, 266003, China

    Zhiyu He, Lan Zhang, Guanhua Peng, Guoqing Wang & Xingguo Liang

  2. Laboratory for Marine Drugs and Bioproducts of Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, 266237, China

    Guoqing Wang & Xingguo Liang

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  1. Zhiyu He
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  2. Lan Zhang
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  3. Guanhua Peng
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Correspondence to Guoqing Wang.

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Supplementary Information

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41664_2021_153_MOESM1_ESM.docx

Supplementary file1 (DOCX 1565 KB) Supporting Information. Experimental details for synthesizing CTAB-capped AuNS, AuNR and AuNT, additional spectral analysis and control experimental results.

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He, Z., Zhang, L., Peng, G. et al. Chemical Redox-Modulated Etching of Plasmonic Nanoparticles for Nitrite Detection: Comparison Among Gold Nanosphere, Nanorod, and Nanotriangle. J. Anal. Test. 5, 350–359 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41664-021-00153-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41664-021-00153-4

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