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.