Tian Rui, Zhong Jinpan, Lu Chao, Duan Xue
State Key Laboratory of Chemical Resource Engineering , Beijing University of Chemical Technology , Beijing 100029 , China . Email:
Chem Sci. 2017 Oct 16;9(1):218-222. doi: 10.1039/c7sc03897f. eCollection 2018 Jan 7.
There is a long-standing challenge to realize visualization of incorporated inorganic materials in organic-inorganic composites in a post-labeling manner, owing to the lack of specific fluorescent organic dye molecules for targeting inorganic materials. Herein, we observe that the specific covalent B-O binding between the hydroxyl groups of inorganic materials and commercially available aggregation-induced emission (AIE)-active boronic acid could lead to the formation of highly emissive solid-state fluorescent composite materials. The hydroxyl-triggered luminescent probe may serve as a practical method for location of incorporated inorganic materials in polymer-matrix composites by simply dipping the composite film in boronic acid-modified AIE solution. This present work offers a non-invasive avenue to locate inorganic materials which possess hydroxyl-groups in polymer-matrix composites, thereby developing a convenient screening strategy for assessing the advanced properties of composites. This strategy can also be extended to the targeted tracing of other inorganic materials with inherent and functionalized carboxyl, amino, sulfhydryl and other groups tuning the binding affinity between the inorganic materials and luminescent molecules.
由于缺乏用于靶向无机材料的特定荧光有机染料分子，以标记后方式实现有机-无机复合材料中掺入的无机材料的可视化一直是一个长期存在的挑战。在此，我们观察到无机材料的羟基与市售的聚集诱导发光（AIE）活性硼酸之间的特定共价B-O键合可导致形成高发射固态荧光复合材料。通过简单地将复合膜浸入硼酸修饰的AIE溶液中，羟基触发的发光探针可作为一种实用方法来定位聚合物基复合材料中掺入的无机材料。本工作提供了一种非侵入性途径来定位聚合物基复合材料中具有羟基的无机材料，从而开发一种方便的筛选策略来评估复合材料的先进性能。该策略还可扩展到对具有固有和功能化羧基、氨基、巯基及其他基团的其他无机材料进行靶向追踪，以调节无机材料与发光分子之间的结合亲和力。
