A novel dual-activatable ultrasensitive chemiluminescent probe for mercury (II) monitoring: From rational design to multiple application.

Real-time optical sensing of mercury has been developed rapidly in recent years but remains challenging such as bearing background interference. Herein, a Hg and base dual-activatable ultrasensitive chemiluminescent probe CL-Hg based on benzothiazole-phenoxyl-dioxetane with profits of excitation light-free and minimal interference is presented. The photophysical properties study and sensing performance verified CL-Hg is coupled with unique advantages of long-term detection (more than 400 min), ultrahigh sensitivity (LOD = 0.52 nM), and high specificity to Hg, and visualization detection by the paper-based test strips. More importantly, CL-Hg showed the qualitative and quantitative detection capability for Hg with great recyclability in real samples of water, seafood, and beverages, holding great potential for on-site monitoring of Hg levels in the actual samples. To our knowledge, this is the first work achieving the detection of Hg by chemiluminescence. Overall, the Hg-activated visualization platform offers a practical method for detecting Hg in various application scenarios.