High-Yield Production of Water-Soluble MoS2 Quantum Dots for Fe3+ Detection and Cell Imaging

Benhua Xu; Zhiqi Zhang; Peng Zhang; Li Wang; Rui Yuan; Zhenghua Ju; Weisheng Liu

doi:10.3390/nano10112155

High-Yield Production of Water-Soluble MoS₂ Quantum Dots for Fe³⁺ Detection and Cell Imaging

Nanomaterials (Basel). 2020 Oct 29;10(11):2155. doi: 10.3390/nano10112155.

Authors

Benhua Xu¹, Zhiqi Zhang¹, Peng Zhang², Li Wang³, Rui Yuan¹, Zhenghua Ju⁴, Weisheng Liu⁴

Affiliations

¹ Chemical Engineering College, Qinghai University, Xining 810016, China.
² Qinghai Provincial Engineering Research Center of High-Performance Light Metal Alloys and Forming, Qinghai Provincial Key Laboratory of New Light Alloys, Qinghai University, Xining 810016, China.
³ College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Xi' an Shiyou University, Xi'an 710065, China.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Nonferrous Metals Chemistry and Resources Utilization of Gansu Province and State Key Laboratory of Applied Organic Chemistry, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China.

Abstract

Uniform water-soluble MoS₂ quantum dots (WS-MSQDs) were synthesized via a sequential combination of sintering/etching/exfoliation method and solvothermal route. The obtained WS-MSQDs with average size of approximately 3.4 nm exhibited sufficient water solubility and remarkable fluorescence properties. The WS-MSQDs were utilized as a probe for detection of Fe³⁺ ions with high selectivity and specificity. Furthermore, the WS-MSQDs exhibited high fluorescence stability under different conditions. Finally, the WS-MSQDs were successfully applied for the fluorescence imaging of Fe³⁺ in living cells, which exhibited practical potential for biomedical applications.

Keywords: Fe3+ ion sensor; fluorescent probe; living cells; water-soluble MoS2 quantum dots.

Abstract

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