Chemically modified mesoporous wood: a versatile sensor for visual colorimetric detection of trinitrotoluene in...

There is great interest in detection of the level of 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) explosive due to its importance in public security and environmental protection fields. The conventional chemical sensors do not simultaneously realize simple, rapid, sensitive, selective, and direct detection of TNT in different medium without sample pretreatment. Here we present a modified wood-based chemical sensor for visual colorimetric detection of TNT in water, air, and soil. The natural wood undergoes a delignified process, which is further functionalized by 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES). When TNT solutions are introduced, the wood-based sensor shows a colorimetric transition from light yellow to brown for naked-eye readout because of the generation of Meisenheimer complex between APTES and TNT. The photographs are collected by smartphone camera, and the RGB components are extracted to calculate the adjusted intensity for qualitative detection of TNT. This visual colorimetric sensor for TNT solution displays a linearity in the range of 0.01-5 mM with a limit of detection of 3 μM. In addition, by taking advantage of its inherent mesostructure, the wood-based sensor can be employed for visual detection of TNT vapor as well. Furthermore, it is also able to directly detect TNT in wet soil samples based on capillary action, in which TNT carried by water transports upward along the wood microchannel, triggering the generation of Meisenheimer complex. Graphical Abstract.