Highly selective recognition of naphthol isomers based on the fluorescence dye-incorporated SH-β-cyclodextrin functionalized gold nanoparticles

In present work, a rhodamine 6G (Rh 6G)-incorporated β-cyclodextrin functionalized gold nanoparticle (Rh 6G-CD-AuNP) based fluorescent assay has been successfully developed for recognizing/detecting the structural isomers, α-naphthol and β-naphthol, in aqueous solution. The β-cyclodextrin functionalized gold nanoparticles (CD-AuNPs) are achieved by conjugating the thiolated β-cyclodextrin (SH-β-CD) with AuNPs via S-Au covalent bonds. Rhodamine 6G (Rh 6G) is chosen as a fluorescent probe in this approach because it can be strongly absorbed on the surface of AuNP by noncovalent interaction. After binding with β-CD cavity, the naphthols enable to act as electron transfer quenchers of Rh 6G, which lead to significant fluorescence quenching of the dye. Because of different association ability of naphthol isomers with the β-CD cavity, the assay can selectively distinguish α-naphthol and β-naphthol with reasonable sensitivity. Detection of naphthols down to 8 nM with a dynamic range of nearly three orders of magnitude (0.01–8 μM) for α-naphthol and 50 nM with two orders of magnitude (0.1–20 μM) for β-naphthol is demonstrated, respectively. The ability of the method for detecting the content of α-naphthol or β-naphthol in the different naphthol mixtures has also been evaluated.