Chiral vanadium oxide nanoparticles (V2O3 NPs) with different chiroptical signals were successfully prepared by employing tartaric acid, malic acid, and penicillamine as chirality-inducing agents. These chiral nanoparticles show sensitivity to pH values as they could express various optical transition modes such as charge transfer, d–d transitions, and surface plasmon resonance due to their rich electronic states, leading to tunable chiral optical activities in the UV–visible range. The different colors of V2O3 NPs with varied ligands at different pH values indicate the configuration variation of the chiral ligands as revealed by UV–visible absorption spectroscopy and circular dichroism (CD) characterizations. In addition, the as-synthesized chiral V2O3 NPs exhibit suitable properties for use as biomolecular probes and exhibit a limit of detection (LOD) of 3.185 μM for H2O2 sensing, indicating that chiral V2O3 NPs could provide a highly sensitive and real-time sensing scheme, which may provide a useful strategy for the development of chiral materials in the areas of chiroptics and biosensors.
Cheng et al. (Mon,) studied this question.