Nonenzymatic chemiluminescence resonance energy transfer: an efficient technique for selective and sensitive detection of silver ion

Abstract

A sensitive nonenzymatic chemiluminescence method was developed for the detection of silver ions. The assay is based on chemiluminescence resonance energy transfer (CRET) between luminol and fluorescein with the formation of a ternary complex between fluorescein, phenanthroline (Phen) and silver ion. Standard solutions containing silver ions in the concentration range of 1.0 × 10⁻⁷ M to 2.5 × 10⁻⁴ M were examined by the proposed procedure and it was observed that the calibration curve obtained was linear in this range with a correlation coefficient of 0.9993. The detection limit for silver ion was estimated to be 5.0 × 10⁻⁸ M. Advantages of the proposed method is its high selectivity and low detection limits compared with other methods.