Fluorescent metal nanoclusters for explosive detection: A review

Explosives pose significant threats to global safety and cause widespread environmental concerns, thus the development of rapid and reliable detection methods for explosives is highly important. In recent years, metal nanoclusters (MNCs) have garnered considerable attention due to their ultrasmall size, well-defined structure, distinct fluorescent properties and tailorable surface chemistry, making them promising for the design of robust fluorescent explosive sensors. This review first summarizes the sensing mechanisms based on MNCs for explosive detection, and then provides an overview of sensing strategies and detection performance utilizing three primary types of MNCs (gold, silver, and copper NCs). Finally, current challenges and future development prospects of MNC-based sensors for explosive detection are discussed.