A Facile Colorimetric Method for Ultra-rapid and Sensitive Detection of Copper Ions in Water

It is of great meaning to develop a facile, reliable and sensitive method to detect copper ions in water. In the study, a facile method has been developed for rapid and sensitive detection of Cu2+. An interesting phenomenon has been observed that 3,3′,5,5′-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB) ethanol solution can be extremely fast passed from colorless to yellow once Cu2+ ions are added. It easily occurs to us that Cu2+ can be quantitatively determined via the absorbance at 904 nm of the color changed TMB solution. More importantly, some specific anions (Cl−, Br−) can significantly enhance the absorption intensity. Under the optimized experimental conditions, this method exhibits a good linear response range for Cu2+ from 0.5 to 100 μM, with the detection limit of 93 nM. Moreover, the possible detection principle has been explored. It is worth mentioning that the color change can be clearly observed by naked eyes for the detection of 1 μM Cu2+, which is far below the threshold limit of Cu2+ in drinking water suggested by World Health Organization. It means that this method possess great promise for on-site Cu2+ detection.