Selective Hg²⁺ sensor performance based various carbon‐nanofillers into CuO‐PMMA nanocomposites

Abstract

Ternary nanocomposites (NCs) containing copper oxide (CuO)/poly(methyl methacrylate)/various carbon‐based nanofillers have been successfully prepared as thin films by an ex situ method as a selective Hg+2 sensor. The structural, morphological, and electrochemical properties of the NCs were identified by all common characterization tools. The FT‐IR curves of these NCs proved the efficiency of CuO mixed with single‐walled CNTs (CuO/SWCNTs), multi‐walled CNTs (CuO/MWCNTs), or graphene (CuO/G) nanoparticles in the PMMA polymer matrix. The mixed nanofillers significantly improved the properties of the PMMA film. The thermal characteristics of the pure PMMA polymer matrix were highly developed by adding nanofillers in the form of NCs. The maximum composite degradation temperature (CDTmax) values were comparable for all the NCs and were in the range of 345 to 406°C. For fabrication, the CuO‐PMMA‐SWCNT, CuO‐PMMA‐MWCNT, and CuO‐PMMA‐GNCs were coated onto a glassy carbon electrode (GCE) to form a tiny layer with orderly thickness using a conductive 5% Nafion chemical binder. During the electrochemical investigation, it was found that CuO‐PMMA‐SWCNT had the maximum response toward Hg2+ ions compared to the other nanofillers in a buffer medium (phosphate type). To calibrate the Hg2+ ionic sensor, the data were plotted against Hg2+ ion concentration and the proposed sensor showed linearity over a wide range of concentrations (0.1‐0.01 mM), which is called the linear dynamic range (LDR). The analytical parameters, such as sensitivity (1.70 × 102 μAμM‐1 cm−2), detection limit (55.76 ± 2.79 pM), and limit of quantification (185.87 pM) were calculated from the calibration curve. Moreover, it showed good reproducibility, fast response time, good linearity, large LDR, and good stability. The CuO‐PMMA‐SWCNT NC‐modified GCE offers a new route to fabricate novel heavy metal ionic sensors, which might be used in green environment and health development applications.

Sol-Gel Synthesis and Characterization of Highly Selective Poly(N-methyl pyrrole) Stannous(II)Tungstate Nano Composite for Mercury (Hg(II)) Detection

“…Reduction in Hg 2+ ion removes electrons from the PNMPY/NANO-Stannous(II)WO 3 composite surface, which ultimately decreases the conductance of the PNMPY/NANO-Stannous(II)WO 3 /GCE assembly; hence, the current response decreases. Superior consistency as well as stability also displayed by PNMPY/NANO-Stannous(II)WO 3 /GCE sensor [39,40]. Despite these developments in this proposed sensor, there are still a few challenges that need to be addressed before it can be commercialized.…”

CuO/PMMA Polymer Nanocomposites as Novel Resist Materials for E-Beam Lithography

“…While grafting has been the most common method to enhance the nanofiller miscibility (e.g., References [19,20]), the suggested approach in this work entails the use of polar solvents and physical mixing so as to keep the cost and preparation time as low as possible, and it was based on the reported results of Botsi et al [21]. Physical mixing of CuO nanofillers with the polymer host has also been reported in other works [22][23][24], but in all cases, the films were merely formed by drop-casting and lithographic patterning was not attempted. CuO was selected as the nanofiller as it has been proven to be one of the most promising and versatile metal oxides exhibiting a remarkable spectrum of properties, such as catalytic activity [25], energy storage capabilities [26], optoelectronic [27,28] and antibacterial properties [29], and most notably gas sensing properties [30][31][32].…”

“…CuO was selected as the nanofiller as it has been proven to be one of the most promising and versatile metal oxides exhibiting a remarkable spectrum of properties, such as catalytic activity [ 25 ], energy storage capabilities [ 26 ], optoelectronic [ 27 , 28 ] and antibacterial properties [ 29 ], and most notably gas sensing properties [ 30 , 31 , 32 ]. This work was mainly devised with the latter in mind so as to create a novel CuO/PMMA resist material readily applicable for the development of polymer-based novel gas sensors [ 24 , 33 ]. PMMA was chosen as the polymer host, since it is one of the most widely employed resists in EBL donned with optical transparency in the UV-VIS part of the spectrum, good mechanical properties and chemical stability.…”

Reusable pectin‐coated magnetic nanosorbent functionalized with an aptamer for highly selective Hg2+ detection

“…The challenges of the detection of mercury ions (Hg 2+ ) in real samples include its trace amounts and the interference from other matrixes. Therefore, the high specificity from the interaction of aptamer (apt) with metal ion targets could be a promising tool for Hg 2+ detection 39‐46 . Aptamers are a class of short nucleic acid sequences or peptide molecules selected through systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment (SELEX) 47 .…”