Aggregation-induced emission enhancement (AIEE)-active tetraphenylethene (TPE)-based chemosensor for Hg2+ with solvatochromism and cell imaging characteristics

Aling Tang; Zhao Chen; Diandian Deng; Gang Liu; Yayi Tu; Shouzhi Pu

doi:10.1039/c9ra02119a

Aggregation-induced emission enhancement (AIEE)-active tetraphenylethene (TPE)-based chemosensor for Hg²⁺ with solvatochromism and cell imaging characteristics

RSC Adv. 2019 Apr 16;9(21):11865-11869. doi: 10.1039/c9ra02119a. eCollection 2019 Apr 12.

Authors

Aling Tang¹, Zhao Chen¹, Diandian Deng¹, Gang Liu¹, Yayi Tu¹, Shouzhi Pu¹

Affiliation

¹ Jiangxi Key Laboratory of Organic Chemistry, Jiangxi Science and Technology Normal University Nanchang 330013 PR China chenzhao666@126.com pushouzhi@tsinghua.org.cn.

Abstract

An aggregation-induced emission enhancement (AIEE)-active fluorescent sensor based on a tetraphenylethene (TPE) unit has been successfully designed and synthesized. Interestingly, the luminogen could detect Hg²⁺ with high selectivity in an acetonitrile solution without interference from other competitive metal ions, and the detection limit was 7.46 × 10^-6 mol L^-1. Furthermore, the luminogen also showed interesting solvatochromic behavior and superior cell imaging performance.