New Colorimetric Chemosensor for Rapid Naked-Eye Detection of Cu and Its Application in Gas-Generating Agents.

In this work, a new rhodamine derivative R1 was constructed to act as a highly effective colorimetric chemosensor for Cu ions. The introduction of Cu could lead to the formation of 1:1 metal-ligand complex and the rhodamine ring-opening process. Resultantly, R1 displayed marked absorbance and fluorescence enhancement with the addition of Cu ions. Furthermore, there was a good linear relationship between the absorbance intensity change and the concentration of Cu ions, which was beneficial for the exactly quantitative detection. R1 could serve as practical colorimetric sensors for "in-the-field" measurements that would not require any additional equipment by virtue of "dip-sticks" approach. Especially, the efficient detection of Cu with R1 for the practical application was successfully performed in gas-generating agents detection.