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Sensitive and Selective Determination of Cu2+ Using Self-Assembly of 4-Mercaptobenzoic Acid on Gold Nanoparticles

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Abstract

Cu2+ is a bio-accumulative and toxic environmental pollutant, so its sensitive and selective detection is of great importance. In this work, gold nanoparticles were electrochemically deposited on fluorine-doped tin oxide and characterized by scanning electron microscope and cyclic voltammetry. 4-Mercaptobenzoic acid (4-MBA), which contained carboxyl chelator, was self-assembled on the surface of gold nanoparticles through S–Au bond. The strong chelation of Cu2+ with 4-MBA formed a stable Cu2+-4-MBA complex, which was confirmed by energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. Square wave voltammetry was applied to determine the concentration of Cu2+. Under optimized condition, the oxidation peak current was proportional to the concentration of Cu2+ in the range of 10–1500 nM with limit detection of 8 nM. The proposed electrochemical sensor showed excellent selectivity towards Cu2+. In addition,the applicability of the developed sensor was evaluated by determining the concentrations of Cu2+ in river water samples, which were consistent with the results of inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy.

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Acknowledgements

This research is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 61571278, 61571280).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Sciences, Shanghai University, 99 Shangda Road, Shanghai, 200444, People’s Republic of China

    Mi Zhou, Long Han, Haibo He, Dongmei Deng, Lin Zhang, Xiaoxia Yan, Zhenyu Wu, Yaqi Zhu & Liqiang Luo

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  1. Mi Zhou
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  2. Long Han
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  3. Haibo He
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  5. Lin Zhang
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Correspondence to Haibo He or Liqiang Luo.

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Zhou, M., Han, L., He, H. et al. Sensitive and Selective Determination of Cu2+ Using Self-Assembly of 4-Mercaptobenzoic Acid on Gold Nanoparticles. J. Anal. Test. 3, 306–312 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41664-019-00102-2

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