A pyrenyl-appended organogel for fluorescence sensing of anions

Abstract

A 1,2,3-trioctyloxyphenyl-based organogel (G1) containing a pyrene fluorophore and urea-sulfonamide anion binding sites was designed and synthesized. Gelator G1 can form stable organogels with dramatic aggregation-induced emission (AIE) in some organic solvents. The self-assemble mechanism of G1 was investigated by concentration depended 1H NMR, XRD, FT-IR and SEM techniques. In addition, G1 shows good fluorescence sensing ability to some selected anions such as F− and AcO−. In DMF solution, the addition of F− into the organogel G1 shows a gel-gel phase change with the AIE quenched. However, the addition of AcO− leads to a gel-sol transition with little fluorescence change.