Harnessing biomass derived carbon material with heteroatoms for sensitive and selective detection of mercury (II) ions in waste water
Nancy Jaswal, Vishal Bharati Jaryal, Raghubir Singh, Pramod Kumar, Neeraj Gupta
Abstract
A wide range of raw materials can be converted into carbon materials primarily through chemical and physical activation, or a combination of both. The characteristics of resultant carbon material depend significantly on activation method and the specific raw materials used. This work processes date seed biomass using a chemical activation and thermal annealing method to derive a low-cost and porous carbon material DS-AC@400. The material was then used as a fluorescent sensing probe for selective and precise detection of Hg 2+ ions in wastewater. There was a linear correlation between Hg 2+ concentration and fluorescence intensity of DS-AC@400 with a limit of detection of 8.69 nM. It was found that the DS-AC@400-based fluorescent sensor has a high selectivity for Hg 2+ detection against other interfering metal ions. The sensor worked effectively in real water samples for practical applications with little interference from interfering ions.