Research Progress in Mercury Ion Fluorescence Probes Based on Organic Small Molecules

Mercury has strong biological toxicity and poses great harm to human health and the environment.Fluorescent probes have been widely applied in the detection of mercury ion in recent years, due to these probes with high sensitivity, high selectivity, and real-time monitoring.Owing to the advantages of small molecules such as structural diversity, good repeatability, easy modification, and clear sensing mechanisms, many organic small molecular fluorescence probes for detecting mercury ion have also been developed.According to the different reaction mechanisms between probes and mercury ion, these organic small molecular fluorescence probes can be classified into two categories based on coordination type reactions and bond breaking type reactions.The research progress of organic small molecular fluorescence probes used to detect mercury ion in the past five years is summarized in detail.This provides a reference for their further development in the future, especially for the new turn-on type reactive organic small molecular fluorescence probes for detecting mercury ion by utilizing the characteristic reactions.