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Journal of Undergraduate Research

Keywords

metal ion chemosensor, cadmium, natural resources

College

Physical and Mathematical Sciences

Department

Chemistry and Biochemistry

Abstract

As society today continues to evolve technologically at a rapid rate, problems dealing with contamination of our natural resources become increasingly complex. Not only are new toxins introduced into the environment, but selective detection and removal of these contaminants proves ever more difficult. Heavy metals such as cadmium, lead, mercury, and radioactive nucleotides pose special problems to human health because of their tendency to accumulate in the body. Metal ions are specifically difficult to detect because of the large amount of benign ions (calcium, zinc, copper, sodium, etc.) that are naturally present in any water source. Fluorescence spectroscopy has made selective detection of metal ions a reality because of the potential of constructing organic sensors that selectively bind with metal ions of certain size. The Savage laboratory has developed an organic sensor with high selectivity for cadmium over other common metal ions (Figure 1). In preliminary studies, the surface sensor gave large fluorescent responses to cadmium at micro molar concentrations. However, the detection of cadmium in the presence of similar metal ions, such as copper and zinc, proved difficult. While these metals produce a significantly smaller response, the competitive effects make it difficult to measure cadmium concentrations with high accuracy.

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