Synthesis of luminescent gold nanoclusters

Abstract

Gold nanoparticles (GNPs) are widely used in biomedicine as agents for imaging, photothermal therapy, and drug delivery. A large variety of applications of GNPs is based on their unique physical and chemical properties such as surface plasmon resonance as well as clusterization effect, which causes the photoluminescent properties.
The luminescent nanoclusters can be obtained from chloroauric acid and biologically active agent of bovine serum albumin (BSA). BSA forms a shell around the inorganic aurum core, which makes it possible to obtain nanoclusters with luminescence properties in the long-wave area. Therefore, BSA contains a lot of functional groups that can be efficient for further surface functionalization of clusters, and their application in chemical analysis.
In our work, we used chloroauric acid and BSA for luminescent gold nanoclusters formation at different synthetic conditions. We explored thermal synthesis at 100 and 37ºC with a time of 0.5-1 and 12 hours, respectively. Obtained nanoclusters had a bright luminescence at 650 nm and were homogeneous in size with a negative charge. The luminescent nanoclusters obtained at optimal conditions (37ºC for 12 hours) had a quantum yield of 10±2 % and were stable for 60 days.
The work was supported by the Russian Ministry of Education and Science (project № FSRR-2020-0002).

Speaker

Rashchevskaya Regina
Saratov State University, 83 Astrakhanskaya Street, Saratov, 410012, Russia
Russian Federation

Discussion

Ask question