A carbonothioate-based highly selective fluorescent probe with a large Stokes shift for detection of Hg²

Mercury (Hg) is one of the heavy metal pollutants in the environment. Even a very small amount of mercury can cause serious harm to human beings. Herein, we reported a new carbonothioate-based fluorescent probe for the detection of Hg²⁺ without interference from other metal ions. This probe possessed a very large Stokes shift (192 nm), which could improve the detection sensitivity by minimizing the interferences resulted from self-absorption or auto-fluorescence. With the addition of Hg²⁺ to the probe solution, considerable fluorescence enhancement was observed. Additionally, the Hg²⁺ concentration of 0-16 μM and fluorescence intensity showed a good linear relationship (y = 22106× + 53108, R²  = 0.9955). Finally, the proposed probe was used to detect Hg²⁺ in real water samples, and its result was satisfactory. Therefore, our proposed probe would provide a promising method for the determination of Hg²⁺ in the environment.