Silver cluster-assembled materials for environmental monitoring gains traction
Scientists develop two novel silver cluster-assembled materials with enhanced stability and excellent selective Fe3+ sensing ability
Silver cluster-assembled materials (SCAMs) are emerging light-emitting materials with molecular designability and unique properties. However, due to their dissimilar structural architecture in different solvents, their widespread application remains limited. Now, researchers from Tokyo University of Science in Japan have developed two new SCAMs that exhibit excellent fluorescence and high sensitivity to Fe3+ ions in aqueous solutions, indicating their potential for environmental monitoring and assessment.
In recent years, there has been a growing interest in using silver nanoclusters (Ag NCs), nanoscale silver particles composed of tens to hundreds of atoms, across various fields like material science, chemistry, and biology. Ag NCs typically have sizes ranging from 1–3 nm. Scientists have made significant progress in creating and manipulating Ag NCs, leading to the development of silver cluster-assembled materials (SCAMs). SCAMs are light-emitting materials made up of many interconnected Ag NCs, joined together by special organic linker molecules called “ligands.” What is special about them is their molecular-level structural designability and unique photophysical properties. However, their widespread use has been limited owing to their dissimilar structural architecture when immersed in different solvents.