A novel fluorescence sensing strategy for identification and quantitation of C60 and C70 by multi-emission lanthanide-disalicylaldehyde hybrid

Abstract

Till now, there is still a lack of the convenient and efficient approach to implement identification and quantitation of fullerenes in various domains. This work provides the first example for detecting fullerenes by an adequate fluorescent probe, in parallel with the new methodology for detecting fullerenes by the fluorescent chemosensing approach. Using a multi-emission lanthanide-disalicylaldehyde coordination hybrid H2Qj2/Tb0.91Eu0.09, the rapid, selective and discriminative detection of analogous C60 and C70 can be easily achieved after the spectral and statistical analyses of fluorescent sensing signals on four emission bands (416, 543, 447 and 615 nm), excited by two irradiation lights (370 and 394 nm). Titration experiments further verify the very high linearity for both C60 and C70 and allow their detection at concentrations as low as 1.72 μM (C60) and 0.09 μM (C70). Moreover, this fluorescent probe also shows its reliable abilities to identify proportional C60/C70 mixtures and monitor C60 and C70 contents in actual soil sample. It is believed that our proposed lanthanide-base fluorescent matrix not only verify the feasibility and potential of fluorescent chemosensing methodology for the fullerene detection but also provide a valuable tool for potential applications.