A Novel Heterogeneous Colorimetric and Spectrophotometric Chemosensor for Detection and Adsorption of Hg-0 and Hg2+

Abstract

Functionalized mesoporous silica with an immobilized azobenzene-coupled receptor 1 (FMS-1) as heterogeneous "naked-eye" colorimetric and spectrophotometric chemosensor was prepared by sol gel reaction. The optical sensing ability of FMS-1 was studied by addition of metal ions such as K+, Ca2+, Sr2+, Co2+, Cd2+, Pb2+, Zn2+, Fe3+, Cu2+ and He2+ in aqueous solution. Interestingly, upon the addition of Hg2+ in aqueous suspension, FMS-1 resulted in a color change from maroon to red within 10 s. On the other hand, no significant color changes were observed with the other metal ions. These findings confirm that FMS-1 can be useful as a chemosensor for selective detection of Hg2+ over a range of metal ions. Furthermore, the adsorption ability of the FMS-1 was also estimated by measuring the amount of Hg2+ and Hg-0 adsorbed on the FMS-1, resulting in 95% for He2+ and 75% for Hg-0, respectively, suggesting that the FMS-1 is potentially useful as the adsorbent for separation of Hg-0 and Hg2+ in chromatography.