“…Ren's group recently designed two novel hydrophilic AIE-based sensors, B23 and B24, bearing alkyl sulfonate groups on AIEgens dicyanodistyrylbenzene and TPE, respectively, for the selective detection of berberine chloride (BBC) in water samples. 200,201 Electrostatic interactions and attractions between BBC and the sensors' sulfonate groups promote sensor-analyte ionic assembly and aggregation, which cause RIM to the AIE sensors, B23 and B24, therefore turning-on the yellow and green fluorescence, respectively. The sensing of BBC shows good linear relationship between 5-35 and 10-80 mM for B23 and B24, respectively, and LODs of 9.3 Â 10 À8 and 6.58 Â 10 À6 M, respectively.…”