Nano Au-Hg amalgam for Hg2+ and H2O2 detection

In this work, gold nanoparticles were synthesized, the introduction of Hg 2+ led to the formation of Au-Hg amalgam , which was found to possess an enhanced peroxidase-mimicking activity towards H 2 O 2 -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 Hg 2+ and H 2 O 2 , the linear ranges were 0.1–5   nM and 0.5–100   μ M, respectively. Furthermore, a test strip was successfully designed, it exhibited high sensitive, rapid and low cost for Hg 2+ and H 2 O 2 detection. More importantly, the colorimetric method could be successfully applied to real sample application in solution and in a test strip.