The authors report on a one-pot approach for synthesizing highly fluorescent protamine-stabilized gold nanoclusters. These are shown to be a viable nanoprobe for selective and sensitive fluorometric determination of lead(II) via quenching of fluorescence via Pb(II)-Au(I) interaction. Under optimized conditions, fluorescence measured at excitation/emission peaks of 300/599 nm drops in the 80 nM-15 muM lead(II) concentration range. The detection limit is 24 nM, and relative standard deviations (for n = 11) at concentrations of 0.10, 4.0 and 15 muM are 1.6, 2.5 and 1.9%, respectively. The relativ...
