Aggregation-induced-emission (AIE) directed assembly of a novel responsive nanoprobe for dual targets sensing

The employment of aggregation induced emission (AIE) species for detecting analytes has become ubiquitous in many applications ranging from environmental monitoring to novel chemical sensing processes. Herein, a new organic building block (4,4',4″,4″'-(ethene-1,1,2,2-trayltetrakis (benzene-4,1-diyl))tetrakis(1-methylpyridin-1-ium) boric acid (TPE-B)) has been synthesized and such chromophore exhibits very weak emission in aqueous solution. The molecule-surfactant interaction can lead to distinguished yellow emissions and the incorporation of sodium dodecyl sulfonate (SDS) will generate morphological changes from irregular organic clusters to aggregated nanoparticles with the size of 45 nm. A six-fold intensity enhancement has been observed and the electrostatic forces are believed to act as the primary role for the selective response to SDS. Based on the in situ established TPE-B-SDS framework, a switched-off effect has been observed in the presence of ClO^- and this signal change will allow us to accurately determine the concentration of such reactive oxygen species (ClO^-). The limits of detection for SDS and ClO^- are calculated to be 54.2 nM and 14.2 nM, respectively. These excellent optical properties have been extended into practical range and the results for the detection of SDS and ClO^- in tap water samples are satisfactory. It is anticipated that the responsive probe will provide deeper insights into multi-targets sensing in extensive systems.