Glutathione modified Ag nanoparticles as efficient detector for pyrimethanil

This work reports on glutathione modified Ag nanoparticles (GSH-Ag NPs) as a chemosensor for detecting pyrimethanil in an aqueous medium. The GSH-Ag NPs were expediently obtained by reducing AgNO3 with NaBH4 and modified with glutathione based on the Ag–S bond. The rapid discrimination for pyrimethanil from other pesticides exhibited the high selectivity of GSH-Ag NPs, then the selectivity was proved by 1H NMR, FT-IR and computational simulation. Based on the good properties of localized surface plasmon resonance, the selective recognition was transformed to visible optical signal in colorimetric test. Additionally the quantitative detection was achieved with good sensitivity and could be applied to analyze practical samples. The experimental results have shown a good linear relationship with pyrimethanil concentration ranging from 10 μM to 1 mM and a low detection limit of 3.87 μM.