Selective nanomolar detection of mercury using coumarin based fluorescent Hg(II)-Ion imprinted polymer

In this work new coumarin based N-[4-(2-Oxo-2H-chromen-3-y1)-thiazol-2-yl]-acrylamide (OCTAA) fluorescent monomer was successfully synthesized for the first time. The OCTAA monomer possesses fluorescence property and gets quenched in presence of metal ions. Thus, we have synthesized Hg(II)-ion imprinted polymer (IIP) using OCTAA, ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (cross-linker) in presence of azobisisobutyronitrile by radical polymerization for selective detection of mercury. The polymerization was confirmed by FTIR and C-13 NMR spectroscopy. The X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy study has been done to evaluate functional groups involved in complexation with mercury. The FE-SEM was used to study the morphology of IIP. Nitrogen adsorption-desorption experiments showed BET surface area of 76.90 and 48.1 m(2) g(-1) for IIP and NIP, respectively. The fluorescence for IIP was observed at 450 nm with linear response range of 0.05-1.2 mu mol L-1 and detection limit 0.020 mu mol L-1. The fluorescent Hg(II)-IIP was successfully employed for the sensing of the mercury from real water sample. (c) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.