Encapsulation of Silver Nanoclusters into Zeolitic Imidazolate Framework-8 as a Novel Fluorescent Sensor for Simultaneous Detection and Adsorption of Tetracycline

The overuse of tetracycline (TRC) antibiotics threatens human health and the environment, highlighting the urgent necessity to develop an effective technology for their detection and control. In this work, silver nanoclusters (Ag-NCs) were encapsulated in zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 to prepare composites (Ag-NCs@ZIF-8) with high luminescence performance and used for TRC detection and adsorption. Because of the protection and restriction of the ZIF-8 layer, Ag-NC luminescence intensity was significantly enhanced. In addition, owing to the outstanding luminescence properties of Ag-NCs and the porousness of ZIF-8, the Ag-NCs@ZIF-8 composites not only served as a fluorescent detector for the sensing of TRC but also displayed good adsorption ability for TRC. In the range of 0.02–400 μM, Ag-NCs@ZIF-8 fluorescence decreased linearly with the TRC concentration with a detection limit of 6.67 nM. Importantly, the present luminescent sensor was employed to quantitatively assess TRC in real water samples, yielding acceptable accuracy and precision and indicating the good application value of this method.