Aluminium(III) Salophen complex as a luminescent turn-off/turn-on sensor for nitrobenzene, Fe3+, and toluene

Abstract

An Al(III) complex, Al-Salp-(H2O)2NO3 (Salp-Al, Salp = N,N’-bis(salicylidene)-1,2-phenylenediamine), is synthesized from the Schiff base ligand Salp. Salp-Al can emit green light in DMF/H2O solution or in solid state and is characterized by XPS, SEM, FT-IR, NMR and TGA. The Salp-Al shows a response to Fe3+ and nitrobenzene in DMF/H2O as a turn-off chemosensor with a limit of detection of 0.4 × 10−4 M and 4.6 × 10−5 M, respectively. Salp-Al can also be applied to detect toluene in DMF/H2O as a turn-on chemosensor with an excellent limit of detection of 4.3 × 10−4 M. The fluorescence lifetime of Salp-Al is 1.94 ns.