Wearable design for occupational safety of Pb2+ water pollution monitoring based on fluorescent CDs

Abstract The indiscriminate discharge of industrial and domestic wastewater leads to the pollution of production, living, and landscape waters with heavy metals, including Pb2+. To protect people working in environments with risk of water pollution by Pb2+, the Pb2+ chemosensor based on fluorescent carbon dots (CDs) was designed in this study. Based on quenching of the fluorescence of CDs via electron or energy transfer between Pb2+ and CDs, the sensor induces a significant “dark blue to light blue” fluorescence burst color change under the naked eye. Results suggest that the fluorescence intensity of CDs positively correlated with the concentrations of Pb2+ (R2 = 0.823–0.986), which is conducive to the detection of Pb2+-containing wastewater by CDs. On this basis, we integrated CD fluorescent sensors into wearable gloves via a mediated coating method. With no additional burden (off-site, long lead times, high cost, etc.), the designed wearable gloves enable front loading of the detection window for Pb2+-contaminated water to protect the wearer from poisoning. Eight watershed environmental occupants reported a 57.42% reduction in occupational anxiety after using our safety gloves. We believe that the proposed flexible and stable wearable sensing system will not only have great potential applications in Pb2+ field detection but also stimulate the development of other environmental pollution sensing devices.