Probing of ascorbic acid by CdS/dendrimer nanocomposites: a spectroscopic investigation.

The gamma irradiation method has provided a route for synthesis of highly water-soluble, good-quality luminescent CdS/dendrimer nanocomposites with amino- or carboxyl-terminated PAMAM dendrimer. An attempt has been made to probe ascorbic acid with the as-synthesized CdS/dendrimer nanocomposites (DNC). Ascorbic acid (AA) is an important biological antioxidant and marker for different diseases in clinical chemistry as well as in quality control in the food industry. Micromolar concentrations of AA significantly quenched the photoluminescence (PL) of both amino (-NH(2)) and carboxylic (-COOH) functionalized semiconductor nanocomposites. The quenching followed a linear Stern-Volmer equation and time-resolved photoluminescence spectroscopy confirmed its static nature. A strong size dependence of the quenching pattern was observed. The binding constants, and the corresponding thermodynamic parameters DeltaG(theta), DeltaH(theta), DeltaS(theta) at different temperatures were calculated. CdS DNC showed selectivity towards ascorbic acid even in the presence of possible interfering molecules, such as uric acid, tartaric acid and citric acid. Nanocomposites-based assay techniques could override the complications involved in multitudes of assay procedures, providing a simple and fast new strategy for the quantification of Ascorbic acid in the range of 16.6 to 100 microM (R=0.998, n=9). The proposed method was applied to the detection of ascorbic acid in Vitamin C tablets with satisfactory results.