Sensitive sulfide sensor with a trypsin-stabilized gold nanocluster.

In this work, we synthesized a trypsin-stabilized fluorescent gold nanocluster. It was found that sulfide interacted with the nanocluster, which could result in significant fluorescence quenching. With this quenching effect, a fluorescence sulfide sensor was developed. This sensor responded linearly to sulfide in the range of 50 nM to 8 μM, and was capable of detecting sulfide as low as 5.5 nM. This provided a facile and sensitive scheme for sulfide analysis; the mechanism of the sensor was also provided. The sensor was then tested for real sample analysis, and good recoveries were obtained. Furthermore, persulfate was found to be effective to remove the quenching of sulfide, and this interaction was adopted for an indirect analysis of persulfate.