CsPbBr 3 NCs Confined and In Situ Grown in ZIF-8: A Stable, Sensitive, Reliable Fluorescent Sensor for Evaluating the Acid Value of Edible Oils

Rapidly and sensitively evaluating the acid value (AV) of edible oils is significant to ensuring food quality and safety. Cesium lead bromide perovskite nanocrystals (CsPbBr NCs) are an effective candidate for AV detection; however, their instability restricts wide applications. Herein, CsPbBr @ZIF-8 was prepared by confining and growing CsPbBr NCs in situ into zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8) to improve the stability, and a fluorescence sensor was established to evaluate the AV of edible oils. The results present that CsPbBr NCs (below 5 nm) with excellent optical properties were confined and grown in situ in micropores and mesopores of ZIF-8. Meanwhile, CsPbBr @ZIF-8 had better long-term storage, ultraviolet-irradiation, and water-exposure stabilities, compared with CsPbBr NCs. Given the fact that free fatty acids (the major contributor of AV) decrease the fluorescence of CsPbBr NCs, the fluorescence intensities of CsPbBr @ZIF-8 were negative-linearly related to oil AV ( = 0.9902) in 0.04-6.00 mg of KOH/g with a 0.06 mg of KOH/g limit of detection. Besides, the practical AV recovery was 92-101% with an average relative standard deviation of 2%. Furthermore, the detection time was 20 min. The response mechanism revealed that free fatty acids could remove surface ligands and increase surface defects to prompt the aggregation of CsPbBr NCs and the formation of lattice fringe dislocations, inducing a decrease in the fluorescence. Thus, a stable, sensitive, reliable sensor was established to evaluate the AV of edible oils.