Gold Nanoparticle-Based Miniaturized Nanomaterial Surface Energy Transfer Probe for Rapid and Ultrasensitive Detection of Mercury in Soil, Water, and Fish

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• 作者：Gopala Krishna Darbha ; Anandhi Ray ; Paresh Chandra Ray
• 刊名：ACS Nano
• 出版年：2007
• 出版时间：October 31, 2007
• 年：2007
• 卷：1
• 期：3
• 页码：208-214
• 全文大小：425K
• 年卷期：0
• ISSN：1936-086X

文摘

Contamination of the environment with mercury has been an important concern throughout the world for decades. Exposure to high Hg levels can be harmful to the brain, heart, kidneys, lungs, and immune system of humans of all ages. Driven by the need to detect trace amounts of mercury in environmental samples, here we present a miniaturized, inexpensive, and battery-operated ultrasensitive gold nanoparticle-based nanomaterial surface energy transfer probe for screening mercury levels in contaminated soil, water, and fish which has excellent sensitivity (2 ppt) and selectivity for Hg(II) over competing analytes, with the largest fluorescence enhancement to date for sensing Hg(II) in environmental samples (1100-fold). The sensitivity of our probe to detect mercury level in soil, water, and fish is about 2–3 orders of magnitude higher than the EPA standard limit. We demonstrate that our probe is suitable to screen the amount of mercury in different fish, shellfish, and water samples from various commercial sources.