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Detecting Mercury (II) and Thiocyanate Using “Turn-on” Fluorescence of Graphene Quantum Dots

Journal of Fluorescence volume 30, pages 1181–1187 (2020)Cite this article

Abstract

In this work, 1.8 nm graphene quantum dots (GQDs), exhibiting bright blue fluorescence, were prepared using a bottom-up synthesis from citric acid. The fluorescence of the GQDs could be almost completely quenched (about 96%) by adding Hg2+. Quenching was far less efficient with other similar heavy metals, Tl+, Pb2+ and Bi3+. Fluorescence could be near quantitatively restored through the introduction of thiocyanate. This “turn-on” fluorescence can thus be used to detect both or either environmental and physiological contaminants mercury and thiocyanate and could prove useful for the development of simple point-of-care diagnostics in the future.

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Acknowledgements

A. Rahdar would like to thank the University of Zabol for financial support (UOZ-GR-9618-40) for this work. J.F. Trant would like to thank the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (2018–06338) and the Tricouncil’s New Frontiers Exploration Grant (NFRFE-2018-00075) for providing financial support for this work. The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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  1. Department of Physics, University of Zabol, P. O. Box. 98613-35856, Zabol, Iran

    Faezeh Askari & Abbas Rahdar

  2. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Windsor, Windsor, ON, N9B 3P4, Canada

    Mohadeseh Dashti & John F. Trant

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  1. Faezeh Askari
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  2. Abbas Rahdar
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  3. Mohadeseh Dashti
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  4. John F. Trant
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Askari, F., Rahdar, A., Dashti, M. et al. Detecting Mercury (II) and Thiocyanate Using “Turn-on” Fluorescence of Graphene Quantum Dots. J Fluoresc 30, 1181–1187 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10895-020-02586-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10895-020-02586-z

Keywords

  • Graphene quantum dot
  • Hg2+
  • SCN−
  • fluorescent detection