Preparation and characterization of ball milled chicken eggshell derived activated carbon (ACESP) / halloysite nanotubes (HNT) / fluorescein (FL) nanocomposite [BACHFL] as novel fluorescent probe for heavy metal ion detection

Abstract

Mercury is considered as the most hazardous pollutant due to its adverse effects to mankind. Hence the present work aims at the preparation and characterization of ball milled chicken eggshell derived activated carbon (ACESP) / halloysite nanotubes (HNT) / fluorescein (FL) based fluorescent probe (BACHFL) for the selective detection and effective adsorption of Hg(II). where chemical activation and ball milling methods were adopted. The selectivity of BACHFL was examined by considering 15 different toxic heavy metal ions, where it exhibits “Turn-off” fluorescence with a Limit of detection (LOD) and adsorption capacity of 2.90 nM and 387.1 mg/g towards Hg(II) and the same is confirmed using BACHFL coated cotton cloth strip probes. Moreover, the obtained LOD was significantly below the permissible limit of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for Hg(II) in drinking water (10 nM). To analyse the versatility of prepared BACHFL, three different groundwater samples were considered for water quality and microbial analysis. The BACHFL treated groundwater samples have meagre dissolved solids, hardness, bacterial counts and coliform bacteria. From these results, it is clear that the prepared BACHFL nanocomposite could serve as an excellent fluorescent probe for heavy metal ion detection and antimicrobial agent in the realm of environmental remediation applications.

Keywords

• Activated carbon
• Fluorescein
• Halloysite nanotubes
• Mercury
• Environmental remediation