Dual-channel discrimination of two lethal chemical warfare agents using an ESIPT-ICT-based fluorescent probe

Among all kinds of chemical warfare agents, only cyanide and nerve agents can cause massive mortality at low concentrations. In this work, a dual-channel fluorescent probe CWAs-Thia capable of detecting cyanide and nerve agents is presented. The two reactive recognition units, pyridine and the thiazole-2-carbonyl group, of the probe for cyanide and nerve agents, respectively, produced red and blue fluorescent responses, respectively, which were attributed to excited-state intramolecular proton transfer and intramolecular charge transfer. CWAs-Thia is the first probe that can selectively recognize cyanide and nerve agent. And it has proven to be effective in visualizing cyanide and nerve agents in living cells.