A facile AIEgen-based fluorescent probe design strategy and its application in hypochlorite probe construction

Abstract

Fluorogens with aggregation-induced emission (AIE) characteristics (AIEgens) and the strategy for constructing AIEgen-based fluorescent probes have attracted extensive attention. In this work, inspired by the relationship between chemical structures and fluorescence properties of three tetraphenylethylene (TPE)-based compounds, a facile strategy by modifying of AIEgen with electron-donating substituent (EDS) and electron-withdrawing substituent (EWS) capable of reacting with target for fluorescent probe design was proposed. Under the guidance, a series of hypochlorite (ClO−) probes named TPEP-CN, TPEP-NO2, M-TPEP-CN and M-TPEP-NO2 were rationally designed and synthesized, and their sensing performances were studied. Finally, M-TPEP-CN with the most obvious fluorescence color change from orange to green in the presence of ClO− was selected, and then successfully applied to ClO− detection in aqueous solution as well as the construction of portable test strips and cell imaging, which confidently proved the feasibility of our probe design strategy and more excellent probes will be developed according to this strategy in the future.