Acylhydrazone Functionalized Triphenylamine-Based Fluorescent Probe for Cu: Tunable Structures of Conjugated Bridge and Its Practical Application.

Novel fluorescent probes were constructed for the convenient and rapid analysis of Cu ions, taking advantages of the the triphenylamine backbone as chromophore and acylhydrazone group as the Cu recognition site. Especially, probe T2 could act as a dual-channel probe towards Cu through both fluorescent and colorimetric method. Through the fluorescent method, the detection limit of probe T2 was calculated to be as low as 90 nmol/L and there was a good linear relationship between the intensity change and the concentration of Cu ions. By virtue of the two-phase liquid-liquid extraction method, probe T2 could be successfully applied in practical extraction and separation of Cu. Furthermore, by applying a "turn-off-turn-on" circle, compound T2 could act as a sensitive probe towards S anions through the indirect approach and the detection limit of complex T2-Cu for S anion was found to be 110 nmol/L.