Ultrasensitive and selective detection of Hg2+ using fluorescent phycocyanin in an aqueous system

Hg2+ toxicity is one of the most common chemical poisonings that occurs mainly from drinking polluted water. In the current work, Phycocyanin (PC) was exploited as a fluorescent sensor for sensitive and selective detection of Hg2+ in an aqueous system. PC-Hg2+ interaction was monitored using a spectro-fluorometer under different buffered solutions at pH values of 6,7,8,9, or 10 above the isoelectric point of PC (5.18). A remarkable decrease of PC fluorescence intensity was observed under Tris-buffer at pH 6 upon the addition of increasing Hg2+ concentrations (1-120 nM). Under the maintained experimental conditions, the current sensor showed a good linear relationship with R-2 = 0.9971 and a limit of detection as low as 0.7 nM was achieved. In addition, a notable selectivity of Hg2+ over other nine heavy metals (Cu-2+,Cu- Zn-2+,Zn- Pb2+, Mg-2+,Mg- Mn4+, Li+, Fe-3+,Fe- Co2+, and Al3+) was achieved in the presence of 120 nM of each metal. Moreover, the current fluorescent detection assay was also tested in real samples of pond water, and recoveries as well as relative standard deviations within the acceptable limits were recorded.