An Efficient Probe of Cyclometallated Phosphorescent Iridium Complex for Selective Detection of Cyanide

Nan Lin; Hui-Dan Ou; Qiyan Xu; Yan Jin; Wei Deng; Zi-Jian Yao

doi:10.1021/acsomega.9b04364

An Efficient Probe of Cyclometallated Phosphorescent Iridium Complex for Selective Detection of Cyanide

ACS Omega. 2020 Feb 28;5(9):4636-4645. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.9b04364. eCollection 2020 Mar 10.

Authors

Nan Lin¹, Hui-Dan Ou¹, Qiyan Xu², Yan Jin¹, Wei Deng¹, Zi-Jian Yao^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ School of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Shanghai Institute of Technology, Shanghai 201418, China.
² School of Metallurgical Engineering, Anhui University of Technology, Maanshan 243032, China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Chemo/Biosensing and Chemometrics, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, China.

Abstract

A cyclometallated phosphorescent iridium-based probe to detect CN^- was prepared through a cyanide alcoholize reaction based on the C^N type main ligand and N^N type ancillary ligand (2-phenyl pyridine and 1,10-phenanthroline-5-carboxaldehyde, respectively). The efficient probe exhibited good sensitivity in response to CN^- in an CH₃CN and H₂O (95/5) mixture within a 1.23 μM detection limit. The response of PL is directly in line with the concentration of CN^- from 0 to 2.0 equiv. The PL investigation of other reactive anions proved the great selectivity to CN^-. Additionally, upon adding 1.0 equiv. of cyanide, the formation of cyanohydrin was correctly elucidated in ¹H NMR, FT-IR, and mass spectra studies. The conspicuous results indicate that the iridium complex has the potential possibility of application in other biosystems related to CN^-.