A new water-soluble polymer fluorescent chemosensor with thiophene Schiff base site for selectively sensing Al3+ ions

Abstract

Abstract A new thiophene Schiff base-based fluorescent “turn-on” chemosensor PEGSB was developed to efficiently detect Al3+ in water. PEGSB exhibited highly selective and sensitive fluorescence response toward Al3+ even in the presence of other competitive metal ions. The detection limit of PEGSB was calculated to be 1.32\xa0×\xa010−8\xa0M. The binding stoichiometry of PEGSB-Al3+ was found to be 1:1 by Job’s plot analysis. PEGSB showed excellently sensing capability towards Al3+ in a wide pH range from 5 to 9. In addition, PEGSB displayed a better reversibility for Al3+ detection with the aid of EDTA. An INHIBIT logic gate was constructed by using Al3+ and EDTA as input signals and the fluorescence intensity at 444\xa0nm as output signal. Furthermore, test papers containing PEGSB were fabricated for convenient and rapid detection of Al3+ in real water samples.