Turn-on fluorescent detection of cyanide based on the inner filter effect of silver nanoparticles

A simple, sensitive fluorescent method for detecting cyanide has been developed based on the inner filter effect (IFE) of silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs). With a high extinction coefficient and tunable plasmon absorption feature, Ag NPs are expected to be a powerful absorber to tune the emission of the fluorophore in the IFE-based fluorescent assays. In the present work, we developed a turn-on fluorescent assay for cyanide based on the strong absorption of Ag NPs to both excitation and emission light of an isolated fluorescence indicator. In the presence of cyanide, the absorber Ag NPs will dissolve gradually, which then leads to recovery of the IFE-decreased emission of the fluorophore. The concentration of Ag NPs in the detection system was found to affect the fluorescence response toward cyanide greatly. Under the optimum conditions, the present IFE-based approach can detect cyanide ranging from 5.0 × 10−7 to 6.0 × 10−4 M with a detection limit of 2.5 × 10−7 M, which is much lower than the corresponding absorbance-based approach and compares favorably with other reported fluorescent methods. In addition, the present method possesses a good selectivity for cyanide over other common anions and further application in cyanide-spiked water samples suggested a recovery between 98.2 and 101.4%. Therefore, our proposed IFE-based fluorescent method is expected to be applied for cyanide determination in practical applications.