A Versatile Aggregation-induced Emission Fluorescent Probe for Visible Detection of pH

By tactfully structuring a luminescent molecule as an accurate pH probe with aggregation-induced emission (AIE) feature, it is significant to overcome aggregation-caused quenching of emitted light in practice. Herein, we present a simple AIE-active fluorescence probe for pH detection on the basis of intramolecular charge transfer (ICT) with wide response range and high sensitivity reaction. The donor-acceptor-donor (D-A-D) style probe utilized a conjugated structural hybrid of the electron-withdrawing nitrile group and electron-donating hydroxyl as well as dimethylamino groups for fluorescent platform. The AIE-active probe possesses good fluorescence under water fraction up to 90% in mixed MeOH/water system. Furthermore, it can be used in profiling and visualization of pH detection in MeOH/water system at f_w = 90% under UV 365 nm lamp. What's more, the probe can be employed to be a broad range test paper of pH detection, paving the way for low-cost practical applications.