Internet of Things-Enabled Aggregation-Induced Emission Probe for Cu2+ Ions: Comprehensive Investigations and Three-Dimensional Printed Portable Device Design

Arunkumar Kathiravan; Themmila Khamrang; Namasivayam Dhenadhayalan; King-Chuen Lin; Kanagachidambaresan Ramasubramanian; Madhavan Jaccob; Marappan Velusamy

doi:10.1021/acsomega.0c05262

Internet of Things-Enabled Aggregation-Induced Emission Probe for Cu²⁺ Ions: Comprehensive Investigations and Three-Dimensional Printed Portable Device Design

ACS Omega. 2020 Dec 8;5(50):32761-32768. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.0c05262. eCollection 2020 Dec 22.

Authors

Arunkumar Kathiravan¹, Themmila Khamrang², Namasivayam Dhenadhayalan³, King-Chuen Lin³, Kanagachidambaresan Ramasubramanian¹, Madhavan Jaccob⁴, Marappan Velusamy⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, Department of Computer Science, Vel Tech Rangarajan Dr Sagunthala R & D Institute of Science and Technology, Avadi, Chennai, Tamil Nadu 600 062, India.
² Department of Chemistry, C. I. College, Bishnupur, Manipur 795126, India.
³ Department of Chemistry, National Taiwan University and Institute of Atomic and Molecular Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taipei 10617, Taiwan.
⁴ Department of Chemistry & Computational Chemistry Laboratory, Loyola Institute of Frontier Energy (LIFE), Loyola College, Chennai, Tamil Nadu 600 034, India.
⁵ Department of Chemistry, North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong, Meghalaya 793 022, India.

Abstract

Herein, we have developed a novel aggregation-induced emission (AIE) probe and three-dimensional (3D) printed portable device for copper (Cu²⁺) sensing in an aqueous medium. A ubiquitous synthetic route has been employed to devise the anthracene-conjugated imidazo[1,5-a]pyridine (TL19) probe as a unique anchor for Cu²⁺ ions. The TL19 is meticulously characterized through pivotal spectroscopic techniques, and the satisfactory results were obtained. The solvatochromic analysis and density functional theory calculations cohesively reveal that the TL19 exhibits the intramolecular charge transfer transition upon photoexcitation. Intriguingly, the TL19 exhibits spherically shaped nanoaggregates and enhanced fluorescence in DMSO/water (10:90) mixtures. This fluorescent nanoaggregate instantaneously responded toward the detection of Cu²⁺ via a deaggregation mechanism. The detection limit is found to be 9 pM in an aqueous medium. Further, the detection of Cu²⁺ in the HeLa cells has also been achieved due to bright green fluorescence, photostability, and biocompatibility nature of TL19 aggregates. On the other hand, an internet of things (IoT)-embedded 3D printed portable device is constructed for the detection of Cu²⁺ ions in real water samples. The Cu²⁺ detection is achieved through an IoT device, and results were acknowledged through an android application in 3.32 s round-trip time. Thus, the IoT-enabled AIE probe could be a prospective device for Cu²⁺ detection in a constrained environment.