Abstract The development of a facile approach to simultaneously detect and separate Hg(ii) ions in an aqueous solution is a challenging topic in the chemosensing field. Herein, we focus on constructing the Hg(ii)-sensitive fluorescence “turn-on”-type composite materials by using halloysite nanotube (HNT) as substrate. Two types of HNTs-based chemosensors, HNTs-PHT and HNTs-BP, were developed in this study, which exhibit Hg(ii)-sensitive fluorescence “turn on” behavior by forming interparticle and intraparticle excimers, respectively. Fortunately, HNTs-PHT is able to effectively restrict the solvent relaxation of π–π* transition and make it a better detection tool in aqueous solution than HNTs-BP. The addition of Hg(ii) can trigger a dramatical increase at 469 nm in emission curves of HNTs-PHT, which cannot exhibit emission behaviors without the addition of Hg(ii). Furthermore, the formation of interparticle excimers makes Hg(ii) serve as a crosslinker to aggregate HNTs-PHT into precipitations. Following this way, Hg(ii) ions can be facilely removed from the water via a simple filtration or centrifugation approach. The as-prepared HNTs-PHT shows high specificity and precision in simultaneously detecting and separating Hg(ii) without the recourse to energy consumption, which will give a novel insight to deal with heavy metal pollution.

中文翻译：

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用于同时检测和分离水介质中 Hg(ii) 的芘功能化埃洛石纳米管：颗粒间和颗粒内准分子的综合比较

摘要 开发一种简便的方法来同时检测和分离水溶液中的 Hg(ii) 离子是化学传感领域的一个具有挑战性的课题。在此，我们专注于以埃洛石纳米管（HNT）为基底，构建对Hg（ii）敏感的荧光“开启”型复合材料。本研究开发了两种基于 HNTs 的化学传感器，HNTs-PHT 和 HNTs-BP，它们分别通过形成颗粒间和颗粒内的准分子而表现出对 Hg(ii) 敏感的荧光“开启”行为。幸运的是，HNTs-PHT 能够有效地限制 π-π* 跃迁的溶剂弛豫，使其成为比 HNTs-BP 更好的水溶液检测工具。添加 Hg(ii) 可以在 469 nm 处引发 HNTs-PHT 发射曲线的显着增加，在不添加 Hg(ii) 的情况下不能表现出发射行为。此外，颗粒间准分子的形成使 Hg(ii) 作为交联剂将 HNTs-PHT 聚合成沉淀。按照这种方式，可以通过简单的过滤或离心方法轻松地从水中去除 Hg(ii) 离子。所制备的 HNTs-PHT 在不消耗能源的情况下同时检测和分离 Hg(ii) 显示出高特异性和精确性，这将为处理重金属污染提供新的见解。