A novel fluorescent sensor, 1-((2-hydroxynaphthalen-1-yl)methylene)urea (ocn) has been designed and applied as a highly selective and sensitive fluorescent probe for recognition of Al3+ in Tris-HCl (pH = 7.20) solution. The probe ocn exhibits an excellent selectivity to Al3+ over other examined metal ions, anions and amino acids with a prominent fluorescence 'turn-on' at 438 nm. ocn binds to Al3+ with a 2:1 binding stoichiometry and the detection limit was 0.3 μM. Furthermore, its capability of biological application was evaluated and the results showed that the sensor could be used to detect Al3+ in living cells.
Keywords: Al3+ detection; bioimaging; chemosensor; naphthaldehyde derivative.
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