Picric acid (2,4,6-trinitrophenol) is a high-power explosive and a common environmental pollutant found in wastewaters generated from leather, pharmaceutical, and dyeing industries. It can form a fluorescent Meisenheimer complex with nucleophiles like N,N’-diisopropylcarbodiimide (DPC). Based upon this unique Meisenheimer complex, a miniaturized fluorescence sensor has been designed for highly selective and sensitive detection of picric acid from environmental samples and commercial samples. The sensor probe equipped with a portable 532nm DPSS green laser could detect picric acid concentrations as low as 100nM (25 ppb) with excellent repeatability. It shows promise for real time evaluation of picric acid contamination in environmental and commercial samples detection with excellent discrimination against other structurally related Nitroaromatics. The validation results for picric acid concentrations in spiked environmental and commercial samples were in good agreement with high performance liquid chromatography analysis. The fluorescence method is simple, selective, sensitive and amenable to high throughput screening. The design of the portable sensor and its working principle has been discussed.

Miniaturized fiber-optic fluorescence analyzer for detection of Picric acid explosive from commercial and environmental samples

256th National Meeting (2018)

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