Facile Synthesis of Fluorescent Conjugated Polyelectrolytes Using Polydentate Sulfonate as Highly Selective and Sensitive Copper(II) Sensors

Abstract

Fluorescent conjugated polyelectrolytes represent an exciting area of research into new chemosensors. By virtue of their rapid electron and energy transfer paths, these highly correlated, one-dimensional systems have been depicted as "molecular wires" and show "million-fold" sensitivity compared to monomolecular sensor analogs. In this paper, a novel polyelectrolyte sensor, the ttp-PPESO, has been designed by incorporating terpyridine and sulfonate functional groups into the polyelectrolyte. This specifically tailored sensor has displayed remarkable quenching response toward copper(II) with a detection limit of 14.7 nM (0.93 ppb). It is capable of selectively screening copper without interference from 12 common cations. Molecular modeling suggests that binding occurs through a coordination interaction of the terpyridine and sulfonate. The additional multidentate nature from the sulfonate offers extraordinary chelating ability to the analyte. We anticipate that this unique binding mode will provide insight for the design of future more sensitive and selective systems.

Facile Synthesis of Water-Soluble Rhodamine-Based Polymeric Chemosensors via Schiff Base Reaction for Fe3+ Detection and Living Cell Imaging

“…Most rhodamine-derived sensors can only work in organic solvent or organic solvent-water mixtures owing to their inherent poor water solubility, which greatly inhibits their applications in practical biological and environmental systems ( Zhang Y. et al, 2020 ; Geng et al, 2017 ; Choudhury et al, 2020 ; Shi et al, 2016 ). Many efforts have been devoted to inventing fluorescent sensors with good water solubility and biocompatibility, which can be achieved by introducing water-soluble carbohydrates ( Chen and Fang, 2018 ) or hydrophilic polymer segments ( Li et al, 2015 ; Li et al, 2016 ; Geng et al, 2017 ; Rong et al, 2017 ; Wu et al, 2017 ) into rhodamine fluorophores.…”

Natural Peptide Probe Screened for High-Performance Fluorescent Sensing of Copper Ion: Especially Sensitivity, Rapidity, and Environment-Friendliness

“…In the past years, with the development of molecular engineering and nanotechnology, multifarious fluorescent materials have been designed and synthesized, such as inorganic fluorescent metal nanoparticles 24 and organic fluorophores. 25 These fluorescent materials have provided tools for constructing probes in analytical chemistry. Undoubtedly, distinct advance for biochemical sensing have been made by these developed fluorescent methods.…”

An Ultrasensitive Fluorescence Sensor with Simple Operation for Cu2+ Specific Detection in Drinking Water

“…In recent years, fluorescent sensors have attracted ever-growing attention because of their advantages: nondestructive, cost-effective, and sensitive detection. It is worth noting that a few copper ion sensors are based on signal “turn-on” response 20−23 and most of the developed fluorescent sensors for copper ion detection are signal “turn-off” response, which usually presents a high background signal. 24−29 Meanwhile, some developed sensing systems could be used to simultaneously detect copper ion and multiple metal ions such as Fe 3+ , Hg 2+ , Zn 2+ , Cd 2+ , Cr 6+ , or Mn 2+ .…”

“…In recent years, fluorescent sensors have attracted ever-growing attention because of their advantages: nondestructive, cost-effective, and sensitive detection. It is worth noting that a few copper ion sensors are based on signal “turn-on” response − and most of the developed fluorescent sensors for copper ion detection are signal “turn-off” response, which usually presents a high background signal. − Meanwhile, some developed sensing systems could be used to simultaneously detect copper ion and multiple metal ions such as Fe 3+ , Hg 2+ , Zn 2+ , Cd 2+ , Cr 6+ , or Mn 2+ . − On the point of specific detection, the detection of copper ion might suffer from interference from other metal ions. In the present work, we aimed to develop a signal “turn-on” sensor for highly sensitive, selective, and cost-effective detection of copper ion with simple operation.…”