Rhodamine Derivative Functionalized Magnetic Nanoplatform for Cu2+ Sensing and Removal

Pollution caused by copper is one of the key factors of environment contamination. As one of the heavy metals, copper is hard to decompose in nature; the biological enrichment of which may lead to severe damage to health. Cu2+ detection, thus, possesses a bright application prospect both in environment protection and in human health. In this paper, a dual-functional fluorescence-magnetic composite nanoplatform has been designed to sensitively detect, meanwhile, capture, and remove Cu2+ in the solution of water and ethanol (1 : 1, v/v). The core-shell structure nanoparticle synthesized by using Fe3O4 as core and SiO2 as shell is covalently bonded with rhodamine derivatives on the silica layer to construct the nanoplatform. The emission is increased upon the addition of Cu2+, showing fluorescence turn on effect for the detection, and the limit of detection is as low as 1.68 nM. Meanwhile, Cu2+ ions are captured by the coordination with rhodamine derivatives and can be removed with the help of magnetic field.