Reusable sensor based on functionalized carbon dots for the detection of silver nanoparticles in cosmetics via inner filter effect

• Functionalization via amidation reaction of the carbon dots.
• Carbon dot surface is chemically modified with ethylenediamine moieties.
• High affinity of amine ending groups of CD surface to silver core of citrated AgNPs.
• Reusable and fluorescent nanosensor versus citrated AgNPs.
• A selective method to determine AgNPs versus other TiO2 NPs in a cream is presented.

We report a low cost selective analytical method based on inner filter effect (IFE) for citrate-silver nanoparticle (cit-AgNP) detection, in which fluorescent amine-derivatized carbon dots (a-CDs) act as the donor and aggregated cit-AgNPs as the energy receptor. Carbon dots (CDs) were chemically modified with ethylenediamine (EDA) moieties via amidic linkage displaying an emission band at 440 nm. The presence of cit-AgNPs produces a remarkably quenching of a-CD fluorescence via IFE, since the free amine groups at CD surface induce the aggregation of cit-AgNPs accompany by a red-shifting of their characteristic plasmon absorption wavelength, which resulted in “turn-on” of the IFE-decreased in CD fluorescence. The proposed method, which involves the use of chelating agents for removal of metal ions interferences, exhibits a good linear correlation for detection of cit-AgNPs from 1.23 × 10−5 to 6.19 × 10−5 mol L−1, with limits of detection (LOD) and quantification (LOQ) of 5.17 × 10−6 and 1.72 × 10−5 mol L−1, respectively. This method demonstrates to be efficient and selective for the determination of cit-AgNPs in complex matrices such as cosmetic creams and reveals many advantages such as low cost, reusability, high sensitivity and non time-consuming compared with other traditional methods.

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