Utilizing Rayleigh light scattering of anthracene nanoparticles for determination of p-cresol in exhaled breath condensate

[Display omitted] •Using anthracene nanoparticles as a Rayleigh light scattering probe.•Development of validated probe for p-cresol determination.•Determination of p-cresol in the EBC of the patient suffering chronic kidney disease. A simple and sensitive Rayleigh light scattering (RLS) method is developed for the quantification of p-cresol in exhaled breath condensate (EBC). The method is based on an aggregation of anthracene nanoparticles in acidic media after adding the p-cresol which results in a marked enhancement in RLS intensity at 410 nm. The increase of RLS intensity is directly proportional to the p-cresol concentration, and the linearity is obtained in the range of 0.007–0.5 μg mL−1, with the LOD of 0.004 ng mL−1. The relative standard deviations (RSDs, n = 5) for inter-day and intra-day analysis were