Highly sensitive detection of bovine serum albumin based on the aggregation of triangular silver nanoplates

•A label free strategy for BSA detection is demonstrated.•The Britton Robison buffer solution improved the sensitivity for BSA detection.•The detection limit for BSA is as low as 0.5 ng/mL.

A simple, fast and highly sensitive spectrophotometric method for the determination of bovine serum albumin (BSA) has been developed based on the interactions between triangular silver nanoplates (TAgNPs) and BSA in the presence of Britton–Robison buffer solution (BR). Particularly, the wavelength of absorption maximum (λmax) of TAgNPs is red shifted in the presence of BSA together with Britton-Robinson buffer solution (BR, pH = 2.56), and the color of the solution changed from blue to light blue. This may be due to the interactions between BSA molecules on the surface of TAgNPs through electrostatic forces, hydrogen bonds, hydrophobic effects and van der Waals forces at pH 2.56, which leads to the aggregation of TAgNPs. The determination of BSA was achieved by measuring the change of λmax corresponding to localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) from UV–visible spectrophotometry. It was found that the shift value in the wavelength of absorption maximum (Δλ, the difference in absorption maxima of the TAgNPs/BSA/BR mixture and the TAgNPs/BR mixture) was proportionate to the concentration of BSA in the range of 1.0 ng mL− 1 to 100.0 ng mL− 1 with the correlation coefficient of r = 0.9969. The detection limit (3 σ/k) for BSA was found to be as low as 0.5 ng mL− 1.

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