Silver Nanoparticle Colorimetric Sensor for Mercury(II) Detection in Water Samples

Overview

Islam et al. (2025) develop a silver nanoparticle (AgNPs)-based colorimetric sensor for mercury(II) detection in water. The method is based on Hg2+-induced aggregation of functionalized AgNPs causing a visible color change from yellow to colorless.

Key numbers

LOD: 1.58 µM Hg2+, equivalent to approximately 317 µg/L (317 ppb). This LOD is approximately 50-fold above the WHO drinking water guideline of 6 µg/L for total mercury, making this method suitable only for highly contaminated water monitoring (industrial discharge, remediation sites), not for regulatory compliance or routine food testing.

Validated in water matrices only. No food matrix validation.

Methods (brief)

AgNPs colorimetric platform with Hg2+-induced aggregation. Visual readout with naked eye possible. The relatively high LOD of 1.58 µM limits practical application to heavily contaminated environmental scenarios.

Implications

Testing: The 1.58 µM LOD places this method well above food and drinking water safety thresholds. Of limited direct analytical relevance to food monitoring but contributes to the broader literature on colorimetric Hg sensors.

Wiki pages updated on ingest

• mercury-methods

Update history

The five most recent substantive edits to this page, classified major (evidence or structure moved), correction (a published value or statement was wrong and has been fixed), or minor (narrative rewritten without changing the underlying evidence). Each description is derived from what the edit did to this page; the linked commit is the authoritative record, routine regeneration passes are excluded, and the full version history lives in git. When DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.