Phenothiazine-based porous organic polymers with high sensitivity and selective fluorescence response to mercury ions

A new Porous Organic Polymer (POP), termed CTF-PTZ , was synthesized through polymerization of 10-methyl-10H-phenothiazine-3,7-dicarbonitrile in the presence of trifluoromethanesulfonic acid catalyst. Owing to the richness of heteroatoms such as N and S atoms in its molecular structure, the fluorescence response of CTF-PTZ to metal ions was studied, and it was found that CTF-PTZ had a specific fluorescence response to Hg 2+ . Thus, high selectivity in fluorescence responsiveness to Hg 2+ of CTF-PTZ was revealed and the detection limit of it was up to be 2.09 ​× ​10 −7 moL·L −1 , which was found by fluorescence spectroscopy titration and fluorescence competition experiments. We successfully demonstrated that the fluorescence responsive POP material provides the promising potential for Hg 2+ detection.