Boronic acid-functionalized tungsten disulfide quantum dots as a fluorescence probe for sensitive detection of dopamine

A fluorescence probe comprising boronic acid-functionalized tungsten disulfide quantum dots for the label-free detection of dopamine was developed. The detection method is based on the selective interaction between diols and aminophenylboronic acid. This interaction generates quenching of fluorescence due to aggregation and the inner filter effect of the fabricated fluorescence probe. The proposed method allows the determination of dopamine in the concentration range from 0.05 μM to 100 μM including a correlation coefficient of 0.9925 along with a low detection limit of 0.01 μM. It manifests a better selectivity towards dopamine in the existence of different interfering analytes. Furthermore, the applicability of the proposed method has been utilized in the real sample which showed promising results for diagnostic purposes.