Nano Au-Hg amalgam for Hg2+ and H2O2 detection

In this work, gold nanoparticles were synthesized, the introduction of Hg2+ led to the formation of Au-Hg amalgam, which was found to possess an enhanced peroxidase-mimicking activity towards H2O2 mediated oxidation of 3, 3', 5, 5'-Tetramethylbenzidine (colorless) to produce a blue product. This color reaction was exploited as a sensitive and selective method for colorimetric detection of Hg2+ and H2O2, the linear ranges were 0.1-5 nM and 0.5-100 mu M, respectively. Furthermore, a test strip was successfully designed, it exhibited high sensitive, rapid and low cost for Hg2+ and H2O2 detection. More importantly, the colorimetric method could be successfully applied to real sample application in solution and in a test strip. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.