Lead confinement and fluorimetric detection using zeolites: Towards a rapid and cost-effective detection of lead in water

Metal clusters stabilized in zeolites have emerged as promising candidates for optoelectronic applications due to their remarkable luminescent properties. These optical properties have been exploited to develop fast and highly sensitive methods for optical sensing in environmental monitoring. However, to date, these materials have not been proposed as a detection method based on their luminescent response for sensing toxic metal ions. In this report, we synthesized luminescent lead (Pb) clusters into the cavities of synthetic F9-NaX zeolites, which were used as scaffolds to confine and detect Pb2+ ions in water through a fluorimetric mode. These Pb-F9 samples display an intense cyan emission in dehydrated form. Also, a correlation between the luminescence intensity of the materials and the lead loadings was observed, obtaining a low limit of detection of 1.248 ppb and a limit of quantification of 3.782 ppb. The results clearly demonstrate the potential of luminescent lead-exchanged F9 zeolites as one-step method for lead monitoring in water using a rapid and low-cost strategy.