A sensitive localized surface plasmon resonance sensor for determining mercury(II) ion using noble metal nanoparticles as probe

Abstract: The noble metal nanoparticles (NPs), including gold nanorods (AuNRs), gold nanospheres (AuNSs) and silver nanoplates (AgNPTs), were synthesized and Tween 20 stabilized NPs (Tween 20-NPs) were used as the probes for determining Hg2+. Hg2+ was determined based on the strong affinity between Au (Ag) and Hg. Hg2+ was reduced to Hg in the presence of sodium borohydride. Hg interacts with the NPs and the diameter of the NPs decreases with the increase of Hg2+ concentration, which causes the shift in absorption peak of Tween 20-NPs. The peak shifts are linearly related to Hg2+ concentrations. Compared with AuNSs and AgNPTs, when the AuNRs was used, the sensitivity for determining Hg2+ was higher. The developed method shows a good selectivity for Hg2+ and can be applied to the determination of Hg2+ in water samples. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]