Photoluminescence detection of nadifloxacin: Adopts switching off photoinduced electron transfer (PET)

Abstract

A new fluorimetric sensing method for the selective and sensitive quantification of nadifloxacin (antibacterial agent, NDF) was established for the first time. The introduced method relies on blocking the photoinduced electron transfer (PET) effect of the nitrogen atom presented on the piperidine ring in NDF by fine-tuning the pH of the surrounding medium through its protonation using 0.5 M acetic acid. This protonation turns the weak fluorescence of NDF into stronger fluorescence intensity, allowing its selective and sensitive detection in its pure state as well as cream pharmaceutical formulation without any obstruction from the common excipients. The developed method has shown an NDF detection limit of 1.72 ng mL−1 and a quantification limit of 5.20 ng mL−1.