Detection of 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid in water sample by organosilane based silica nanocomposites

The present study aims to produce nanocomposites of silica based organosilane as sensitive and selective fluorescent sensor for the recognition of 2,4 dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D). Hydrazone tethered triazole functionalized organosilane has been synthesized by the condensation reaction of 4-hydroxybenzaldehyde and phenyl hydrazine followed by Cu(I) catalysed cycloaddition of azide with alkyne. The prepared compound has been further grafted over silica surface and the synthesized materials were characterized by FT-IR, NMR (1H and 13C), XRD, mass spectrom-etry and FE-SEM spectral analyses. The prepared organosilane and its HSNPs have been utilized as an effective emis-sion probe for the selective detection of 2,4 D with good linear relationship in the range of 0-160 mu M and 0-115 mu M and LOD value of 46 nM and 13.5 nM respectively. In the presence of other active species, the sensor shows minimal interference while the comparison with the previously reported techniques suggests it to be more desirable for the sen-sitive and selective detection of 2,4 D. Further, the real sample application for detection of 2,4 D was analyzed in field water and the HSNPs based sensing system gave recovery percentage of above 98 %.

Automated summary

The present study produces nanocomposites of silica-based organosilane as a fluorescent sensor for the selective detection of 2,4-D. The synthesized organosilane is grafted onto a silica surface and characterized using various spectroscopic techniques. The sensing system based on the synthesized materials shows good selectivity and sensitivity towards 2,4-D in real water samples with a recovery percentage of above 98%.