A new highly sensitive fluorescent probe for visualization of phosgene in liquid and gas phases

Phosgene is an important and widely used highly toxic chemical that poses a serious potential threat to public health and property if leaked or abused. Therefore, developing an efficient and convenient detection method for phosgene is of great significance. In this work, we synthesized a novel fluorescent probe, BCyP, based on benzohemicyanine for highly selective and sensitive detection of phosgene in both liquid and gas phases. The probe uses amino alcohol as a specific recognition group for phosgene and does not fluoresce due to the strong intramolecular charge transfer effect (ICT). However, in the presence of phosgene, the amino alcohol part in the probe can form oxazolidinone in situ with phosgene, reducing the ICT effect in the probe molecule and lighting fluorescence, thus realizing the selective phosgene detection. The probe exhibits good specificity towards phosgene, with significant fluorescence enhancement (approximately 400-fold), a remarkable Stokes shift (139 nm), a fast response speed (less than 17 s), and a low detection limit (0.12 ppm). Additionally, we prepared a phosgene detection paper strip loaded with the probe on filter paper and combined it with color recognition software on a smartphone to achieve visual detection of phosgene in the gas phase.