Efficient fluorescence resonance energy transfer between oppositely charged CdTe quantum dots and gold nanoparticles for turn-on fluorescence detection of glyphosate

We designed a turn-on fluorescence assay for glyphosate based on the fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) between negatively charged CdTe quantum dots capped with thioglycolic acid (TGA-CdTe-QDs) and positively charged gold nanoparticles stabilized with cysteamine (CS-AuNPs). Oppositely charged TGA-CdTe-QDs and CS-AuNPs can form FRET donor–acceptor assemblies due to electrostatic interactions, which effectively quench the fluorescence intensity of TGA-CdTe-QDs. The presence of glyphosate could induce the aggregation of CS-AuNPs through electrostatic interactions, resulting in the fluorescence recovery of the quenched QDs. This FRET-based method has been successfully utilized to detect glyphosate in apples with satisfactory results. The detection limit for glyphosate was 9.8 ng/kg (3σ), with the linear range of 0.02–2.0 μg/kg. The attractive sensitivity was obtained due to the efficient FRET and the superior fluorescence properties of QDs. The proposed method is a promising approach for rapid screening of glyphosate in real samples.