Rhodamine B Hydrazide as a novel fluorescent and colorimetric probe exhibiting remarkably selective fluorescence enhancement toward Hg²⁺ ion over other 16 metal ions is herein introduced. The probe reacts with Hg²⁺ ion followed by its spirolactam ring-opening to give a remarkable enhancement of absorption maximum at 550 nm as well as an enhanced fluorescence intensity at 580 nm in aqueous media. Upon titration with Hg²⁺ ion in various concentration of 10~200 uM, we found that the probe shows a marked color change from colorless to pink, enabling naked-eye detection toward mercury ion. In addition, in the presence of Hg²⁺ ion, the probe gave rise to change from non-florescence to strong orange fluorescence (Off-On) with a good linearity of R²=0.97. This preliminary results demonstrate that the fluorescent chemosensor we herein introduced can open a new strategy for marked selective and sensitive detection of mercury ions in contaminated soil containing various metal ions.

Keywords: Mercury detection;Fluorescence chemosensor;Soil contamination;Extraction;