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Mercury is a highly toxic, bioaccumulative heavy metal that can cause serious health problems even at low concentrations, thus presenting a major threat for the natural water resources. Its high toxicity entails low MCL values (e.g., 2 ppb),[1] requiring at best materials that cannot only selectively detect Hg2+ at trace levels but also effectively remove it. Various such dual functional materials have been developed in the past.[2] However, most of these approaches have limitations with respect to sensitivity and selectivity, show slow responses or require complex instrumentation.
Here we report the development of mesoporous silica materials containing boron-dipyrromethene (BODIPY) probes in their pore systems that allow for the sensitive and selective detection of Hg2+ in water via fluorescence enhancement while at the same time efficiently scavenging the toxic heavy metal. For this purpose, we adopted an earlier strategy[3] and prepared a refined BODIPY probe which was directly adsorbed on the surface of SBA-15-type silica having been functionalized with different organic moieties. Of all the materials tested, SBA-15 expressing propyl chains responded best, allowing for an excellent discrimination against Ag+ and other metals as well as a high sensitivity for Hg2+ with a limit of detection of 1.5 ppb.
The performance of the hybrids with regard to sensing and scavenging was validated by ICP-OES measurements before and after exposure of the materials to Hg2+-containing solutions, allowing retentions of 0.07 g Hg2+ g solid-1. Control studies revealed that while the fluorescent probe is responsible for the very sensitive indication at low Hg2+ concentrations, the majority of the toxic metal ion is scavenged at the walls of the silica material. Current work is directed at the incorporation of these sensor particles into filtration systems for monitoring purposes.