Heavy metal ion sensing in water using surface plasmon resonance of metallic nanostructures

• Review on surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensors for heavy metal ion detection.
• Application of metal nanostructures for SPR sensors and effect of size and shape.
• Techniques to improve selectivity and sensitivity of SPR sensors.

Heavy metal contamination in water and other ecosystems is one of the major environmental issues and already gaining significant attention across the world. For monitoring heavy metals in the environmental ecosystem, optical sensors are getting popular due to their high sensitivity and ease of use. Application of nanomaterials in the sensor elements further improves the sensitivity due to their large surface-to-volume ration, high reactivity, high degree of functionalization and size-dependent properties. This article mainly reviews the application of various metallic nanostructures for heavy metal ion sensing based on surface plasmon resonance (SPR). SPR sensors are widely applied in real time monitoring of heavy metals, chemical and biological analytes etc., because of their ability to efficiently detect and quantify these contaminants even at much diluted conditions (ng/L levels). In this article, SPR sensors fabricated with several metallic nanostructures, such as gold and silver, and their shape and size effects on sensor performance for heavy metal ion detection is discussed. Techniques used to improve the performance of such SPR sensors are also reviewed briefly.

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