Simultaneous electrochemical sensing of Pb²⁺ and Hg²⁺ in aqueous media using 5-amino-1,3,4-thiadiazole-2-thiol...

Metal ion pollution is a major environmental concern, with toxic metals like lead (Pb) and mercury (Hg) contaminating water, soil and air, which poses serious risks to human health and the ecosystem. Thus, effective monitoring is essential to assess and mitigate their harmful impact. Electrochemical metal ion sensing has emerged as a promising real-time technique for quantifying metal ions through electrode reactions with high accuracy, sensitivity and selectivity. For this purpose, a thiol-functionalized silica supported material, FMS-TA-ATT, has been synthesized for the electrochemical sensing of Pb²⁺ and Hg²⁺ simultaneously and individually in 0.2 M acetate buffer solution and is found to hold promising detection ability in neutral medium (pH = 7). The comprehensive characterization of the synthesized materials has been performed by powder X-ray diffraction, electron microscopy, nitrogen adsorption/desorption studies, thermogravimetric analysis, FT-IR, and solid state ²⁹Si and ¹³C CP MAS NMR spectroscopy, and the electrochemical behavior has been evaluated by cyclic voltammetry and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The sensing ability of the glassy carbon electrode prepared with FMS-TA-ATT (FMS-TA-ATT/GCE) has been examined by differential pulse voltammetry. This material shows good selectivity and sensitivity towards Pb²⁺ and Hg²⁺ in 0.2 M acetate buffer solution at pH = 7 with a very low limit of detection (LOD) (13 nM for Pb²⁺ and 29 nM for Hg²⁺). Additionally, FMS-TA-ATT/GCE is efficient at detecting Pb²⁺ and Hg²⁺ in the presence of other metal ions and it also displays sensing ability with real water samples.