A Binary Supramolecular Assembly with Intense Fluorescence Emission, High pH Stability, and Cation Selectivity: Supramolecular Assembly-Induced Emission Materials

Xu Wang; Xin-Yue Lou; Xiao-Yu Jin; Feng Liang; Ying-Wei Yang

doi:10.34133/2019/1454562

A Binary Supramolecular Assembly with Intense Fluorescence Emission, High pH Stability, and Cation Selectivity: Supramolecular Assembly-Induced Emission Materials

Research (Wash D C). 2019 Jul 24:2019:1454562. doi: 10.34133/2019/1454562. eCollection 2019.

Authors

Xu Wang¹, Xin-Yue Lou¹, Xiao-Yu Jin¹, Feng Liang², Ying-Wei Yang^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Inorganic Synthesis and Preparative Chemistry, International Joint Research Laboratory of Nano-Micro Architecture Chemistry, College of Chemistry, Jilin University, 2699 Qianjin Street, Changchun 130012, China.
² The State Key Laboratory of Refractories and Metallurgy, School of Chemistry & Chemical Engineering, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430081, China.

Abstract

We construct a fluorescent supramolecular system (TPE-Q₄ ⊂ DSP5) of excellent tolerance to a wide range of pH by the facile self-assembly of a new pillar[5]arene bearing disulfonated arms (DSP5) with an AIE-active tetraphenylethene-based tetratopic guest bearing four quaternary ammonium binding sites (TPE-Q₄), which exhibits strong blue emission even in dilute aqueous solutions along with much higher quantum yield and longer fluorescence lifetime than TPE-Q₄ itself. This appreciable property can be attributed to the supramolecular assembly-induced emission (SAIE) mechanism endowed by the host-guest inclusion complexation based on synthetic macrocycles. Remarkably, the enhanced fluorescence of the supramolecular assembly is quenched efficiently and exclusively by ferric ions in water with a high Stern-Volmer formula constant of 1.3 × 10⁵ mol^-1, demonstrating the excellent cation selectivity and visualized responsiveness in ion sensing and detection.