SERS-based mercury ion detections: principles, strategies and recent advances

Mercury ion (Hg2+), known as one of the highly toxic and soluble heavy metal ions, is causing serious environmental pollution and irreversible damage to the health. It is urgent to develop some rapid and ultrasensitive methods for detecting trace mercury ions in the environment especially drink water. Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) is considered as a novel and powerful optical analysis technique since it has the significant advantages of ultra-sensitivity and high specificity. In recent years, the SERS technique and its application in the detection of Hg2+ have become more prevalent and compelling. This review provides an overall survey of the development of SERS-based Hg2+ detections and presents a summary relating to the basic principles, detection strategies, recent advances and current challenges of SERS for Hg2+ detections.