Review—Towards Mercury Free: Ion Imprinted Polymer-Based Electrochemical Sensors for Monitoring of Mercury(II)

Abstract

Mercury(II) monitoring is challenging in analytical and environmental sciences but neccesary due to its detrimental effect on human health and environmental safety. Ion-imprinted polymers (IIPs) are synthetic materials with outstanding ion-selective recognition that can be used to make low-cost and time-efficient electrochemical sensors. In the past decade, there has been increased interest in the creation of such electrochemical sensors including those to detect Mercury (II). This article describes the present conception and performance of Hg-IIP-based electrochemical sensors (Hg-IIPECS). Numerous application examples demonstrate the excellent potential of Hg-IIPECS to quantify Mercury (II) in a wide variety of samples with high selectivity and low detection limits.