A New Polymer-Based Fluorescent Chemosensor Incorporating Propane-1,3-Dione and 2,5-Diethynylbenzene Moieties for Detection of Copper(II) and Iron(III)

• Main Authors: Dongliang Yang, Chunhui Dai, Yanling Hu, Shuli Liu, Lixing Weng, Zhimin Luo, Yixiang Cheng, Lianhui Wang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2017-07-01
• Series: Polymers
• Subjects: conjugated polymers; sensor; ion detection; copper(II); iron(III)
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4360/9/7/267
• ISSN: 2073-4360

A novel conjugated polymer (PDBDBM) was developed by the polymerization of 1,4-dioctyloxy-2,5-diethynylbenzene with 1,3-bis(4-bromophenyl)propane-1,3-dione based on Pd-catalyzed Sonogashira-coupling reaction. The obtained polymer PDBDBM exhibited bright green photoluminescence under UV irradiation. According to the metal ion titration experiments, PDBDBM showed high sensitivity and selectivity for detection of Cu2+ and Fe3+ over other metal ions. The fluorescent detection limits of PDBDBM were calculated to be 5 nM for Cu2+ and 0.4 μM for Fe3+ and the Stern–Volmer quenching constant for Cu2+ and Fe3+ were found to be 1.28 × 108 M−1 and 2.40 × 104 M−1, respectively. These results indicated that the polymer can be used as a potential probe for Cu2+ and Fe3+ detection.