Preparation of Dithizone Functionalized Polystyrene for Detecting Heavy Metal Ion

Colorimetric sensors were usually used to detect specific metal ions using selective color change of solu- tions. While almost organic dye in colorimetric sensors detected single molecule, dithizone (DTZ) solution could be sep- arately detected above 5 kinds of heavy metal ions by the change of clear color. Namely, DTZ could be used as multi- colorimetric sensors. However, DTZ was generally used as aqueous type and paper/pellet-type DTZ was not reported yet. Therefore, in this work, polystyrene (PS) was prepared to composite with DTZ and then DTZ/PS pellet was obtained, which was used to selectively detect 10 kinds of heavy metal ions. When 10 ppm of Hg and Co ions was exposed in DTZ/PS pellets, clear color change was revealed. It is noted that DTZ/PS pellet could be used in detecting of heavy metal ion as dry type.