Cadmium ions mediated turn-on electrogenerated chemiluminescence of ZnS nanoparticles for highly selective cadmium detection in seafood

Cd2+ is one of the most toxic heavy metal ions that can be easily accumulated in human body via food chain. Thus, the onsite detection of Cd2+ in food is very important. However, present methods for Cd2+ detection either require the use of large equipment, or suffer from the severe interference from other analogical metal ions. This work establishes a facile Cd2+ mediated turn-on ECL method for highly selective detection of Cd2+ via cation exchanging with the nontoxic ZnS nanoparticles, owing to the unique surface-state ECL properties of CdS nanomaterials. The linear range of the calibration curve is from 7.0 × 10−8 to 1.0 × 10−6 M, while other analogical metal ions do not interfere, facilitating the selective detection of Cd2+ in oyster samples. The result agrees well with that obtained using atomic emission spectroscopy, indicating the potential for wider application of this approach.