A new tridentate fluorescent-colorimetric chemosensor for copper(II) ion

A new tri-imidazolium salt, tris(4-(3-(2-((8-hydroxy-9,10-dioxo-9′,10′-dihydroanthracen-1-yl)oxy)ethyl)-1H-imidazole-3′-ium-1′-yl)phenyl)amine hexafluorophosphate was prepared and characterized. Particularly, the recognition performance of the tri-imidazolium salt for cations was investigated through fluorescence and ultraviolet titrations, MS, IR spectra and ¹H NMR titrations. The results indicated that the tri-imidazolium salt can distinguish effectively copper(II) ion from other cations by the changes of spectroscopy and colour (from yellow to orange under sunlight). Furthermore, the tri-imidazolium salt was also used in detecting Cu²⁺ through employing smartphone with the computed detection limit down to 0.51 μM.