Tailoring plasmonic sensing strategies for the rapid and sensitive detection of hypochlorite in swimming water samples

Abstract

A tunable plasmonic sensor has been developed by varying the dextran content in the initially synthesized dextran-gold nanoparticle (dAuNPs) solution. A colloidal nanogold solution (dAuNPs-Sol) was initially prepared using dextran and gold salt in alkaline media by a one-pot green synthetic route. The dAuNPs-Sol was combined with varying amounts of dextran (ranging from 0.01 to 30.01%) to create a tunable probe, along with different solid formats, including tablet (dAuNPs-Tab), powder (dAuNPs-Powder), and composite (dAuNPs-Comp). Both the liquid and solid phase plasmonic probes were characterized using UV-vis spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) dynamic light scattering (DLS), and zeta potential analysis. The impact of dextran content in the dAuNP solution is studied in terms of surface charge and hydrodynamic size. The influence of operational treatments used to achieve solid dAuNPs probes is also explored. All plasmonic probes were employed to detect a broad range of OCl¯ concentrations (ranging from µM to mM) in water through aggregation followed by calculating a lower and upper limit of detection (LLoD, ULoD) of the proposed colorimetric sensors. Results indicate that the most sensitive detection is achieved with a lower dextran content (0.01%), which exhibits an LLoD of 50 µM. The dAuNPs-Sol sensor is selective and demonstrates real-world applicability, as confirmed by interference analysis and successful testing with various water samples. Additionally, it is found that a 20 × concentration of dextran-coated gold nanoparticles could be attained without any changes in the particle morphology. This concentration is achieved through a straightforward process that does not require the use of a centrifuge machine. This finding highlights the practicality and simplicity of the method, indicating its potential for scalable and cost-effective production of concentrated dAuNPs without compromising their structural integrity.

Keywords: Concentrated nanogold; Dextran-gold nanoparticles; Hypochlorite detection; Plasmonic sensor; Swimming water; Tunable limit of detection.