Tanvir, F.; Yaqub, A.; Tanvir, S.; An, R.; Anderson, W.A. Colorimetric Detection of Mercury Ions in Water with Capped Silver Nanoprisms. Materials2019, 12, 1533.
Tanvir, F.; Yaqub, A.; Tanvir, S.; An, R.; Anderson, W.A. Colorimetric Detection of Mercury Ions in Water with Capped Silver Nanoprisms. Materials 2019, 12, 1533.
Tanvir, F.; Yaqub, A.; Tanvir, S.; An, R.; Anderson, W.A. Colorimetric Detection of Mercury Ions in Water with Capped Silver Nanoprisms. Materials2019, 12, 1533.
Tanvir, F.; Yaqub, A.; Tanvir, S.; An, R.; Anderson, W.A. Colorimetric Detection of Mercury Ions in Water with Capped Silver Nanoprisms. Materials 2019, 12, 1533.
Abstract
The emission of mercury (II) from coal combustion and other industrial processes continues to be a concern and have local impact on water resources. The detection of these ions in water with sensitive but rapid testing methods is desirable for environmental screening and fieldwork. Nanoparticles of various chemistries have shown promise for this purpose, as they can be used in simple colorimetric analyses. Silver nanoprisms were chemically synthesized resulting in a blue reagent solution, that transitioned towards yellow and colorless solutions when exposed to Hg2+ ions at various concentrations. A rapid galvanic reduction of Hg2+ onto the nanoprism surfaces is apparently responsible for a change in shape towards spherical nanoparticles, leading to the change in color. There were no interferences by other metal ions in solution, and pH had minimal effect in the range of 6.5 to 9.8. The silver nanoprism reagent provided a detection limit of approximately 0.5 µM (100 µg/L) for mercury (II), which compares favorably with other nanoparticle-based techniques. Further optimization may reduce this detection limit.
Keywords
nanoparticles; spectral blue shift; amalgam; water quality
Subject
Chemistry and Materials Science, Nanotechnology
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
