Water soluble cadmium selenide quantum dots for ultrasensitive detection of organic, inorganic and elemental mercury in biological fluids and live cells.

Mercury exists in organic, inorganic, and elemental forms; all of them are highly toxic. A sensor which could detect all forms of mercury below the permissible level in environmental and biological samples would be advantageous. A facile method to synthesize -acetyl cysteine capped cadmium selenide quantum dots (CdSe QDs) with an emission at 554 nm was reported.

Synthesis, supramolecular organization and thermotropic phase behaviour of -acyltris(hydroxymethyl)aminomethane.

Herein, we reported the supramolecular organization of -acyltris(hydroxymethyl)aminomethane (NATM) in the solid state as well as in aqueous solution. Single crystal X-ray diffraction revealed that NATM adopts a fully interdigitized structure. The thermodynamic parameters associated with thermotropic phase behaviour of NATM was determined by differential scanning calorimetry.