In this paper, 2-carboxybenzaldehyde rhodamine B thiohydrazine(1) was synthesized and developed as a fluorescent probe to recognize Hg2+in DMF/H2 O(1:9, v/v) solution with high selectivity. The probe can be applied to the quanti?cation of Hg2+with a linear concentration range covering from 1.0×10-7mol/L to 1.0×10-5mol/L(R2= 0.9985) and a detection limit of 4.2×10-8mol/L. The experiment results show that the response of probe 1 to Hg2+is pH-independent in a wide range from 4.0 to 9.0. Moreover, the probe 1 exhibits excellent selectivity toward Hg2+over other common metal cations. Most importantly, the probe can be employed to monitor Hg2+in living cells using fluorescent imaging technique with satisfied results.
