Progress in Preparation of Metal Nanoclusters and Their Application in Detection of Environmental Pollutants

Abstract Environmental pollutants are difficult to degrade and easy to accumulate, which pose a serious threat to human health and ecological environment. Therefore, the rapid and sensitive detection of pollutants is crucially important. Metal nanoclusters (MNCs) have shown good application prospects in the field of chemical sensing due to their small size, high stability, short preparation time and easy modification. As a new type of fluorescent nanomaterials, MNCs have attracted much attention in the field of pollutant detection. In this paper, the research progress of MNCs in detecting heavy metal ions, sulfides, cyanides, polynitroaromatics, formaldehyde, organic pesticides, bacteria and viruses in recent years is summarized, and the development prospect of MNCs is discussed.