Collagen peptides are primarily obtained from the by-products of fish processing, such as fish skin and scales. The use of these materials is both cheap and environmentally friendly. In this study, we generated gold nanoclusters (AuNCs) using tilapia scale collagen peptides (TSCPs) as reducing and chelating agents. This complex (AuNCs@TSCP) exhibited good photo and thermal stabilities. Meanwhile, AuNCs@TSCP was found to be sensitive to heavy metal ions such as Fe3+, resulting in quenching of the AuNCs@TSCP fluorescence in the presence of Fe3+. ...
