A precise method to monitor hydroxyl radical in natural waters based on a fluoride-containing fluorescence probe

Yaoyu Xu; Jiaying Ding; Chengjie Zhang; Mingtao Zhao; Shuaibo Zhu; Guowu Rao; Wen Zhang; Zhenxing Zhang; Junyan Ma

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.166961

A precise method to monitor hydroxyl radical in natural waters based on a fluoride-containing fluorescence probe

Sci Total Environ. 2023 Dec 10:903:166961. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.166961. Epub 2023 Sep 9.

Authors

Yaoyu Xu¹, Jiaying Ding¹, Chengjie Zhang¹, Mingtao Zhao¹, Shuaibo Zhu¹, Guowu Rao², Wen Zhang², Zhenxing Zhang³, Junyan Ma⁴

Affiliations

¹ Henan Provincial Research Center for Precise Synthesis of Fluorine-Containing Drugs, Anyang Normal University, Anyang, Henan 455000, China.
² College of Pharmaceutical Science, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310014, China.
³ Department of Energy and Resources Engineering, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China. Electronic address: zzx1982@pku.edu.cn.
⁴ College of Pharmaceutical Science, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310014, China; Department of Chemistry, Clemson University, Clemson 29634, SC, United States. Electronic address: junyanm@clemson.edu.

PMID: 37696402
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.166961

Abstract

In natural waters, hydroxyl radical (OH) can initiate many free radical-induced reactions, oxidizing various inorganic and organic compounds through electron transfer reactions, dehydrogenation reactions, addition reactions, and self-quenching reactions. However, due to its extremely low concentration and short lifetime in natural waters, studies on the quantitative measurement of OH levels are insufficient. In this work, we developed the first quinolinium-based fluorescence probe containing fluoride substituted donor that could detect hydroxyl radicals in the water system. This probe exhibits excellent selectivity towards OH with a large Stokes shift (114 nm) and 23-fold enhancement in fluorescence. Additionally, this probe has been proven to be low toxicity and applied to detect OH in living cells, zebrafish, and natural water samples with good recovery (over 92 %).

Keywords: Detect; Fluorescence probe; Fluoride; Hydroxyl radical; Imaging; Natural waters.