A novel ratiometric fluorescence nanoprobe for sensitive determination of uric acid based on CD@ZIF-CuNC nanocomposites

A novel ratiometric fluorescence nanoprobe based on carbon dots (CDs) and Cu nanoclusters (CuNCs) was designed for the label-free determination of uric acid (UA). The metal-organic framework (MOF) encapsulated CuNCs (ZIF-CuNC), and nitrogen-doped CDs can self-assemble into well-defined spherical nanocomposites (CD@ZIF-CuNC) due to physical adsorption. Under the excitation wavelength of 360 nm, the CD@ZIF-CuNC nanocomposites exhibit two evident intrinsic emissions peaked at 460 nm (CDs) and 620 nm (ZIF-CuNC), respectively. In the presence of H2O2, the fluorescence of CD@ZIF-CuNC at 620 nm is quenched remarkably within 1 min, while little effect on the emission at 460 nm is observed. Therefore, taking the fluorescence at 620 nm as the report signal and 460 nm as the reference signal, ratiometric quantitative determination of H2O2 was achieved with a linear range of 1-100 mu M and a detection limit of 0.30 mu M. The CD@ZIF-CuNC nanoprobe was successfully applied to the determination of UA that is catalyzed by uricase to produce H2O2, obtaining the linear range of 1-30 mu M and the detection limit of 0.33 mu M. Eventually, this strategy has been successfully applied to the determination of UA in human urine samples.Graphical abstract A novel and convenient CDs@ZIF-CuNCs-based nanoplatform was constructed for sensitive ratiometric fluorescence determination of UA.