A single nanofluorophore “turn on” probe for highly sensitive visual determination of environmental fluoride ions

Yangjie Li; Qin Sun; Lei Su; Linlin Yang; Jian Zhang; Liang Yang; Bianhu Liu; Changlong Jiang; Zhongping Zhang

doi:10.1039/C7RA13601C

A single nanofluorophore “turn on” probe for highly sensitive visual determination of environmental fluoride ions†

Yangjie Li,‡^ab Qin Sun,‡^ab Lei Su,^ab Linlin Yang,^ac Jian Zhang,^ae Liang Yang,

*^ac Bianhu Liu,

^ac Changlong Jiang

^ac and Zhongping Zhang

*^acd

Author affiliations

* Corresponding authors

^a Institute of Intelligent Machines, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, Anhui 230031, China
E-mail: yangliang@iim.ac.cn, zpzhang@iim.ac.cn

^b Department of Chemistry, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China

^c State Key Laboratory of Transducer Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, Anhui 230031, China

^d School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Anhui University, Hefei, China

^e Department of Applied Chemistry, Anhui Agricultural of University, Hefei, Anhui 230036, China

Abstract

Herein, we report a single nanofluorophore “off–on” probe based on the unique fluoride–boron interaction to achieve the visual determination of fluoride ions in environmental water. Red quantum dots (QDs) were modified using 3-aminophenylboronic acid (APBA) to form a stable standard emission probe, and reaction of the probe with catechol formed a five-membered cyclic borate ester, which led to the quenching of the fluorescence emission. The designed nanofluorophore probe showed a turn-on effect in the presence of fluoride ions due to the five-membered cyclic borate ester being transformed into a trifluoroborate, with breakage of the B–O bonds and removal of the catechol from the QDs. The prepared nanofluorophore probe displayed a high sensitivity for the quantification of fluoride ions with a naked eye visual detection limit of 0.4 μM, which was much lower than the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defined limit (37 μM). Furthermore, the probe displayed an effective application for the detection of fluoride ions in environmental samples such as tap water and lake water. The very simple method reported here could be extended to the visual detection of a wide range of analysis assays in natural samples.

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A single nanofluorophore “turn on” probe for highly sensitive visual determination of environmental fluoride ions†

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A single nanofluorophore “turn on” probe for highly sensitive visual determination of environmental fluoride ions

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