A time-cost effective, chemically stable mesoporous resin (FSG-PAN), simultaneous binder of two different metal centers (both high (Cd(II)) and low (Tl(I)) oxidation states), has been synthesized by immobilizing azo-dye (1-(2-pyridylazo)-2-napthol: PAN) on functionalized silica gel (FSG). Its corresponding synthesized nano material possesses good luminescent properties, and has been utilized in fluoride sensing at trace levels (1.8 × 10 -6 -7.2 × 10 -6 M). The composition.·51H2O) and structure (tetrahedral) have been well assessed. Under the optimum extraction conditions, the soft extractor (ηFSG-PAN = 1.31 eV), FSG-PAN quantitatively extracts the soft metal centers Cd(II), followed by Tl(I) at its respective HOMO and LUMO by soft-soft interactions. The extractor possesses a high Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area (SABET) (374 m 2 g -1 ), high preconcentration factor (PF, 192), selective pore size and two kinds of break-through capacity (BTCHOMO, 945 μmol g -1 ; BTCLUMO, 120 μmol g -1 ). BTC is spelled out as a function of the electron density over the ligand binding site as analyzed from a DFT calculation.